Author Fighters: Rage of the Shadow Warriors
by Tal Ordo
Summary: Los Angeles-the City of Angels. Despite the name, it is a dump with crime as its king. Only the timely arrival of a strange peacekeeper does it let up. But, his actions send him on a collison course with both the AF and a notorious Mandalorian mercenary.
1. Chapter 1

**Day 1  
Downtown Los Angeles  
0000 Hours**

Deep within the bowels of the Los Angeles, the City of Angels, crime often ran amuck. Murder, theft, rape, and all other sorts of illicit and immoral activity reigned king. Despite the works of both the local police, and the self-proclaimed heroes, the Fanfiction Author Fighters, little had changed. Crime still ruled; people were still murdered; women and children were still raped. Nothing they did changed that.

The exact same rule applied at this current moment. Shrieks of terror and pleas of help came from the tired lungs of an innocent woman. No older than thirty, as she was dragged into the stereotypical dark alleyway by a pair of armed thugs; both male, late teens. Obviously, they had grown up in the shithole, so they were used to the screams of women about to be raped and killed. Chances were, they were the result of such a horrid act.

One threw her down against the cold pavement, her head striking the stone ground. Blood began to drip from a crack in her forehead from the impact. The sound of a knife being drawn from its sheath brought horror to her already fearful face.

Soon, after being subdued by the second teen, the first began his brutal and uncaring removal of her clothing with said knife, beginning with her shirt, and ending with her pants. Left half-naked, the tears of dread mixed with the blood that flowed from her forehead. Closing her eyes tightly, she shook her head in a vain attempt to pretend it was all a bad dream.

The sound of a faint _hum_, then the screams of pain, and finally the dull thud as two bodies hit the ground. She opened her eyes.

The two men has fallen to the ground, their arms been removed by a clean swipe of…something. Surprisingly, there was no blood, so an energy weapon was the most likely cause. They groaned in pan, too weak to scream anymore. Their arms laid at their sides, unmoving. It was then that she looked up.

Above her, was a man. His light brown hair was kept in braided ponytail down his back, very similar to those of Jedi Padawans long ago. Ragged robes clung to his body, shielding him from the cold. Dark green eyes glanced at her, before walking away he walked away quickly. He fumbled with something in his hand- a small metal cylinder-on his departure.

"Wait!" the woman shouted. "Thank you!"

He never stopped once, and in moments, disappeared; untraceable.

* * *

**Day 1  
Downtown Los Angeles: Several blocks away from attempted rape scene  
0042 Hours**

Jace Galea continued his walk to the small motel he was staying at, ignoring the requests of several inappropriately dressed prostitutes wanting him for a good time. And his money.

When he ignored them, they proceeded to curse him out with a variety of swearing and profanity. He ignored it, as he had been taught to do.

After helping the woman he did not even know from the would-be rapists, he knew that he would attract attention. One normally does not see a lightsaber in Los Angeles. Especially in the criminal underground of the City of Angels.

Finally, upon arriving at the motel and checking back in, he walked up to his single room, unlocked the door, and collapsed on the bed. Tomorrow night, he would begin anew. That was the only way he knew he could help the innocent, as Jedi were supposed to do. Without proper supplies, information, or a master to finish his training, he could not take on the Empire, like most other Jedi would. No, he was content with fighting criminals in the city, because no one else would. Leave the rebellion up to politicians and soldiers. Not him.

After checking to make sure his door was locked again, he used the Force to turn off the remaining lights in the room, and descended into sleep. However, he lacked to notice the small, light red envelope sitting upon the cabinet when he walked in, signed with the symbol of the Rebel Alliance. It was the fifth of the letters that week, all requesting some form of assistance in military or diplomatic matters that 'only a Jedi could be trusted to handle'.

Come morning, it would be thrown in the furnace, along with all of the other letters.

* * *

**Day 1  
Author Fighter Headquarters, Los Angeles  
0100 Hours**

A single-page report was dropped onto the desk of DarkPalidinmon, as he glanced up to see the very tired and rather annoyed face of Nukid.

"I have been up all bloody night, writing this thing for you. Just because someone mentioned we should try to be a little more formal and start writing reports like we're a damn company!" the former assassin exclaimed, the bags under his eyes being exaggerated due to the furious expression upon his face.

DarkPalidinmon sighed as he pulled the page over to his side of the desk. "Not my fault, Nukid. We'll just have to stick with it. What did you get?"

Nukid sighed as well and shook his head, clearing his mind of all anger. "A small Darkside cult. Been formulating about a fraction of the crime here in L.A. Take them out; we clean up downtown a bit."

"What all are they doing?"

"The basics: drug trafficking. Theft. Murder. Rape. Kidnapping. Some work in the human slave trade. Nothing I haven't seen before."

DarkPalidinmon nodded again as he looked over the report. Despite many people thinking the assassin to be a mere goofball, his report was extremely detailed. The Digimon found several spots where he just had to guess at Nukid's true meaning. That is apparently what work with the Cipher Pol did to you.

"I would recommend letting me take a small group and deal with them. Should be easy. They're small-time, and they only cause so much trouble because they're stealthy, and most people aren't expecting them. We will."

"Alright. Take a small group and go. Tomorrow night, alright?"

"Alright. I need a good nap anyway." Nukid left the room, shutting the door behind him. A heavy thud was then heard outside the door. DarkPalidinmon, curious at the noise, left his desk and went to check out the disturbance. He creaked open the door, and found Nukid fast asleep against the wall. He did not even make it five steps out the door.

DarkPalidinmon sighed. Narcolepsy plus exhaustion equaled bad, in simple terms.

* * *

**Day 1  
Sol System; aboard **_**Cuy'val Darasuum**_** frigate **_**Indomitable  
**_**0500 Hours**

"Tal, we are ready for departure," reported a young female Mandalorian, her orange helmet underneath her arm. The two arrow shaped tattoos across her eye flexed whenever she blinked.

The man in sandy gold colored Mandalorian armor, his face being covered up by the T-visor helmet, nodded to her in acknowledgement. "Thank you, Silas. Get the squad ready to deploy, our bounty won't wait forever, now will it?"

She nodded with a smile on her face. "Yes sir."

Tal Ordo, Mandalorian mercenary and leader of the infamous mercenary company, the _Cuy'val Darasuum_, or "Those who eternally exist", was renowned for his brutal tactics and ruthless determination in battle. It was said that any race that existed in the present day, he had killed a member of its species, or a relative to it. Any who stood in his way, was said to be mowed down instantly in gunfire.

Those were just rumors though, and it made him seem far more dangerous than he actually was. He was still dangerous nonetheless, but the rumors which made him seem like a god of war helped him still. Made people afraid, and when people get scared, they made mistakes. Easy to kill people who are making mistakes.

Silas Vel, his second-in-command, was different. She was a brutal killer like him, but was more into finesse than brute force. Also, instead of blasters, she preferred melee combat. Her charisma was incredible, but was not as tactful as other in her profession, often accidentally insulting her contractors due to her own free will, as told by her orange armor that represented her lust for life.

The two had been friends since childhood, ever since she had been adopted into the Mandalorian culture at age thirteen; he was ten. As such, they had a deep bond that few others possessed with another, and would be the first ones to admit it.

They were practically inseparable, unless it was needed to be done for a mission or some other reason. Both shared a deep conviction for battle, as most Mandalorians do. However, their largest devotion was to the betterment of the Mandalorians as a whole. To unite the clans, and make them feared again.

For now though, they were mere mercenaries, leader and co-leader of one of the most powerful and influential mercenary companies in the galaxy, the _Cuy'val Darasuum_. They used the earnings of the group as a whole to fund their ever increasing army of Mandalorians, and use their reputation to bring even more of their _vode_ into the company. It was expected that by the time Tal Ordo would be in his fifties, the Mandalorian clans would be fully united, and form a full government together that would easily crush any opposition they faced, while still maintaining the role of intergalactic soldier-of-fortune.

"Captain Ordo! Commander Veil! The shuttle's taking off in five! Get 'yer _shebse_ over here, or we'll leave ya behind!" yelled a young Mandalorian sergeant, dressed in red Mandalorian armor. Red represented the honoring of a father, so he either took great pride in his lineage, his father had died in battle and it was his way of remembering the man, or he just liked the color red.

Silas chuckled while slipping her helmet back on, her face being hidden from the galaxy by the orange armor and T-visor of her helmet. She raised her fist to Tal's and he mirrored the motion. They slammed their knuckled against each other's and began a short sprint to the shuttle.

Their mission was to go to a planet called Earth, where they had been contracted by a man who wanted them to facilitate the assassination of a creature called a Darkside, who had led a small gang and killed his wife and two children. He was apparently left alive, just to torture him, but was brutally beaten and crippled.

Due to his injuries, he was unable to enact revenge himself, so putting a bounty on his head would have to suffice. And that was where Tal and his small five-man team came in. They were to infiltrate a large city called Los Angeles, and kill this Darkside, by the name of Servitus.

The shuttle finally left the hangar bat of the _Indomitable_, and made its way to Earth. It would be several hours before they arrived. The time would be spent reminiscing old war stories, telling crude jokes, and just small-talk. Through the entire time, Tal and Silas stayed seated next to each other, neither wanting to leave each other's company. For them, the other was all they had left of their childhood; a happier and simpler time with Jango Fett, or _Jang'Buir_, Papa Jango, as they liked to call him.

However, for right now though, they had a mission to complete, and a paycheck to obtain.

_Oya_. Let's rock.

* * *

**I hope you all liked the first chapter of Rage of the Shadow Warriors. If things are kind of confusing, don't worry, they'll start to make sense eventually in this story. Hopefully, it will be without me taking forever to make it make sense. **

**Also, here's a short dictionary of the Mando'a words used so far:**

_**Cuy'val Darasuum: **_**Those who exist eternally**

_**Vode: **_**Brothers; Sisters; Comrades **

_**Buir: **_**Father; Mother**

_**Oya: **_**Let's rock; Let's go hunting**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Los Angeles, Motel Room****  
****Day 1****  
****0945 Hours**

Jace finally awoke from his dreamless slumber, as he did every morning. Yawning, he raised his head from the comfort of the soft pillow, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His hands went up to rub the sleep out of his eyes before he finally stood up.

He performed all of the regular actions one did upon waking up: shower, eat, brush teeth, etc. However, upon leaving the bathroom, it was then that he noticed the envelope, the one signed with the Rebel Alliance's insignia. With a frustrated sigh, he picked it up and tore it open, making sure not to tear the fragile piece of paper inside.

_Dear Master Jedi,_

_I know that you normally do not wish to help the Rebellion in our war against the Empire, but we have found something that we know you would want to stop._

_Several of our spies have found out of a possible agent of the Empire who is working in Los Angeles, capturing people and using them as slave labor. As far as we know, he is sending them to work at Imperial shipyards and create Imperial weapons and ships, or even future weapons of mass destruction._

_These are innocent people that are being exploited, and it goes against everything you stand for to let this continue unchallenged. If you refuse to do this for the sake of the Rebellion, then at least do it for the innocent people of the city you have sworn to protect._

_May the Force be with you,_

_Bail Organa_

Jace placed the envelope down on the cabinet. While he held no love for the Rebellion, or the Empire for that matter, when the people he had promised to defend were involved, that was when he gave a damn.

Jace finished getting dressed and hid his lightsaber underneath his robe, along with a blaster pistol in case he needed to be more careful with his operations. A blaster was infinitely more common than a lightsaber any day.

He prepared to leave his apartment to do some recon out in the streets to try to find this slaver. It would have been so much more helpful if Organa had at least given him a name, or a race. Or even a sex, for the Force's sake. Oh well, there was nothing he could do about it. He would just have to rely on his own skill, and the Force to do that for him.

**Los Angeles, Author Fighter Headquarters****  
****Day****  
****1000 Hours**

Nukid finally awoke from exhaustion and narcolepsy induced nap. A dull pain was present in his head, as the result of falling on his forehead when he lost consciousness. Joy… He sighed as he sat back up and bent his spine backward until he was rewarded with a satisfying crack. He the twisted his neck until a similar crack of the vertebrae satisfied his ears. The former assassin remembered what it was he was doing there, on the floor, next to DarkPalidinmon's office. He was supposed to get a team together, and take out a Darkside cult. He began listing off people that would be perfect for this kind of assignment:

Ranger24, arguably the most powerful of the entire Author Fighters. Of course Nukid would ask him.

X Prodigy, the Hollow Devil would also be of use in this kind of mission due to his incredible strength in nearly all forms of combat.

Hurricane's Quill, a Lunar Exalt and shape shifter. His skill in both combat and tactics would make him an obvious choice for combating the Darkside cult.

Phoenix of the Darkness, despite her young age, would be valuable to the mission due to her quick thinking, and her control over gravity, to an extent.

Airnaruto, the ultimate mix of a shinobi and Jedi, often being referred to as the God Storms. His vast range of skills and abilities would make him a versatile member of the team.

Finally, Mistress of Dawn would be of great assistance as well due to her strength as a werewolf, and her abilities as a Kamen Rider.

Whether or no they would accept the mission request, Nukid did not know. Though, considering their friendship, they would. There would not be a reason that would make them refuse, unless it was life-threatening.

Nukid finally satisfied with his selections, pulled out his cell phone. Dialing a number in, he brought it up to his ear and waited for the other line to answer. When it finally did, he smiled.

"Hey, Ranger. Feel like going on a little killing spree? My treat." Sadly for Ranger, there would be no fan girls to slaughter. But lowly criminals would suffice until the next massacre.

**Earth's orbit, Mandalorian shuttle****  
****Day 1****  
****1230 Hours**

"Entering planetary orbit now, sir," reported the middle-aged pilot of the shuttle. His blue armor went perfectly with the steel-gray of the shuttle's interior.

"Good. Keep the stealth system active until we can land, Kom'rk," Tal ordered standing over his shoulder. He held a loose grip on the pilot seat's back. The shuttle was equipped with a special stealth system that made it invisible to sensors and any other kind of tracking device. It did this by trapping the heat within the ship, mostly in the engines, and preventing them from escaping out into space where enemy monitors could easily find them.

However, they technically were not invisible, as anyone who looked out a window could see them clearly. But, with the advancement of sensors in modern day spacecraft, windows quickly became a mere commodity on civilian cruisers and were impractical on warships.

"I know how to do my job, sir. I've been doing this since before you were born," retorted Kom'rk. It was true, the aged warrior was well into his sixties, over twice as old as Tal was.

Tal, understanding his position, left the cockpit and returned into the main hold of the shuttle. Including him, there were four people in the hold, all clad in Mandalorian armor. The rest of the hold was filled with numerous weapons, explosives, and supplies. They all had a preference, something they were skilled at and were all experts at the fine art of warfare.

Kom'rk, the pilot, was simply what he was doing now: the pilot. His role was to simply ferry the squad to wherever they needed to go. He also served as an intelligence expert, having his own customized search engine right next to his seat, which would be able to find the exact information he needed to find in minutes.

Silas Vel sat in the middle of the hold, sharpening a short sword. She was his second-in-command, and when he needed someone to run in, swords waving, and cut right through an enemy line, she was his go-to man, or woman.

In the corner was a lone Rodian in black armor, the color of justice. Despite many believing the Mandalorians to be a cruel and ruthless and culture, along with being solely human, the Mandalorians often adopted other people into their culture. Any age, gender, or race was allowed in. If anything, the Mandalorians were some of the least judgemental people in the entire galaxy.

And having Fi, the black-armored Rodian, aboard this ship proved that. His original name had been Gede, but had changed it to Fi when he joined the Mandalorians a mere five years ago, when Fi was thirty in human years.

Fi was the team's tech expert, capable of hacking into any system whatsoever. His skill with a gun was lacking, so that was why he spent considerable time building a powerful shield system for his armor, and several small, remote-controlled drones he could deploy on the battlefield to do most of the fighting for him.

Then there was Six-Six, the red-armored sergeant who had called to him and Silas to board the shuttle. He was the team's demolition expert, and was could create an explosive device out of household products capable of wiping out an entire transport, much like the one they were in now. Only much on a much larger scale.

Most asked Six-Six about his strange name, and his answer would be that it was easier to say than his given name, RC-1366, or Bravo-66. Six-Six was a clone commando for the Republic Army, and one of the clones Tal had trained during his time with the _Cuy'val Dar_. Six-Six had left the Republic or Empire as it was now called, after Order 66 was carried out, and the Republic was organized into the Empire.

And Tal himself served as the commander of the squad, not surprisingly. To an extent, he was also the sniper of the team, thanks to his custom made Verpine sniper rifle, which was a very precise, silent, and deadly weapon. It gave off virtually no recoil, making it almost essential for any professional assassin.

The factor that Tal liked most about it was the ammunition it used: small projectiles were fired at such a great speed that it was almost impossible for even the best Jedi to block. The factor made it almost necessary for him as a Jedi hunter. However, he doubted that there would be any Jedi in this mission. The only reason he brought it along was that it was an almost flawless weapon against any target, non-Jedi included.

"Tal," said Silas, interrupting his thoughts. She had apparently walked up behind him when he was not paying attention.

"Yeah?"

"Kom'rk was doing some research about Los Angeles, like he usually does before heading into an unknown zone. He came across something that you might be interested in."

"What is it, Silas?"

"It's a group called the Author Fighters. They try to maintain peace and order, and a lot more _shabla_ crap. Several of their members, at least from what I've seen, are…" The hesitance in her voice was overwhelming for her. She must have truly been afraid if she had finished her statement.

"Are what, Silas?"

A few moments passed before she answered. It felt like an eternity. "Jedi, sir."

Tal blinked once, though she could not see it behind the T-shaped visor. Jedi? There were _shabla _Jedi in Los Angeles?

"How many?"

"I don't know, Tal. Listen, I just told you this so-"

"Do we know names? Skills? Power levels?" Tal was ranting again. Any mention of Jedi forced him into a near-murderous rampage. While Mandalorians accepted anyone wishing to be a part of their culture, Jedi were the only ones he cared nothing for. If they were _Mando'ade_, they would have to prove themselves as _Mando'ade_ before he would truly accept them. Jedi were the second group of people he hated more than anything, with the first group being the Mandalorian extremists, the Death Watch.

"That's exactly why I told you, so you wouldn't be surprised and go off hunting on this mission. Tal, I know you hate Jedi, so do I. But on a mission, we can't go out and kill them randomly. Wait until after it's over, alright, _vod_?"

He nodded, and patted her shoulder. "Understood, Silas. You have full permission to incapacitate your commanding officer should he do anything to deliberately jeopardize the mission." Of course, the commanding officer was him. While his hatred of Jedi went to blind rage, her's was incredibly more controlled, and she could easily bring him in line should he need it.

She smiled and knocked Tal in the head with the back of her hand. It did not hurt either of them, but it got the point across.

"Thanks, Tal. And if you do go crazy out there, I'll make sure to hit you so hard, _Jang'Buir_ will pop out of his grave and come back to give your _shebs_ a kicking of his own."

The two laughed for several minutes before succumbing to aching chests. Fi and Six-Six both glanced at them at times; Fi not knowing what they were talking about and Six-Six just decided to let them have their fun.

The rest of the shuttle ride was uneventful, boring, and long.

* * *

**Underground Sewer System, Los Angeles****  
****Day 1****  
****1300 Hours**

The slow but rhythmic slinging of chains echoed down the sewer tunnel, accompanied by a few grunts of pain or the soft whimpering of young children. Two dozen people of different races, ages, and genders were being shipped down through the sewers to their next destination in the new life that awaited them: the life of slavery.

Beside them, was a pair of two heavily armored soldiers, wearing very rough steel armor, adorned with spikes protruding from the chest, shoulder, elbow, and knee plates. Their faces were covered by black masks, but the yellow eyes still shone through to the outside.

The two guards wielding what appeared leather whips and would occasionally strike a prisoner who spoke too loudly, or just a random child, just to show them who was in charge. Thus, the whips were stained with the blood of their victims. And they enjoyed every minute of it.

Their master, a Darkside who had adopted the alias, Servitus, was a seasoned veteran of the slave trade. All of his life, the past twenty years of being free from his human counterpart, a former slave no less, Servitus had rose to power within the slave trade, and became of the most prominent figures of the business. That was exactly why these two had joined him, so that they could bathe in his wealth and reputation.

Servitus had connections all throughout Los Angeles and the West Coast, communicating mostly through private runners who travelled through the sewers. His strength was immense, not by physical means, but by influence. In battle, famous Darksides like Drake Darkstar, Oldkid, or Shade Blood would kill him in a heartbeat. However, his influence, charisma, and political power was stronger than all of their's combined.

As such, that was why he had refused to align himself with any potential Darkside king. He wanted to wait and see who had the greatest potential to do obtain that goal, and then join him. It was a game of strategy, one he was more than willing to play. His subjects also found it humorous, and would often input their own prediction as to who would win in the end.

These two however, cared not for who would be king, but for their own wealth and power working in the slave trade, as did most of the minor thugs of Servitus.

As for their current shipment, they did not know where they would go in the end, or who it was going to. All they knew was that these people were being put into slavery, and they would be getting paid for it. And that's all they cared about.

It was a good trade to be in, that was for sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**Downtown Los Angeles  
Day 1  
1339 Hours**

The loud staccato of gunfire resounded through the streets, accompanied by shouts of pain, curses, and inhuman gibberish. Yet another gang fight, more people needlessly killing each other off for no reason, other than they lived on the wrong street, or had a bit too much food on their hands.

Jace slowly walked toward the ensuing skirmish, his lightsaber hidden. Dozens of people were running in the opposite direction, trying to escape. Most of them had gotten out alive. However, as he further approached the battle, the corpses of innocent bystanders began to litter the street and sidewalk. Even further on, gang members joined the pile until it was their filthy bodies that were the sole contributors to the blood pool.

The Jedi soon came to the site of the battle, with merely a dozen men-all teenage boys-taking potshots at each other. Poorly armed with only revolvers and bolt-action hunting rifles, there was little they could, especially due to their lack of real experience holding a gun. Most were too afraid to try to show their head to the enemy, something their braver-and perhaps more foolish-comrades were unable to do.

Jace sighed as he focused his thoughts. They had not seen him, so he had time to prepare himself. His master had always told him he was strong in the Force, all he had to do was concentrate and that power would be obtained. Sadly, she was killed before she could fully teach him to harness that full potential. He learned, however, to do this.

Thrusting his arms outward toward the firefight, a massive energy field shot outwards, invisible to all. The combatants and several of the objects that were not nailed down and heavy enough were flown through the air. Some went a mere few feet, while the majority, including the teenage boys, was sent into nearby walls, lampposts, and other street side objects.

Jace spent a few moments regaining his breath, his chest rising and falling with quick succession. His arms sagged at his sides, almost lifeless. Doing that tired him out, because despite all his work, he still had not been able to fully control and direct his own energy into a single blast, and often used unnecessary force. Thus, he was readily exhausted when he unleashed that potential his master had spoken so much of.

After spending several seconds recovering from his show of power, Jace walked through the carnage he had caused. The entire battlefield had been changed from one single telekinetic shove. Cars were tipped over; dumpsters had spilled their contents onto the blood covered street. Some of the less sturdy lampposts had fallen, the wires connecting them to the rest of the city being shown to the surface and sparking madly.

The remaining dozen boys were all badly injured from his unexpected assault. Some were trapped within piles of garbage, others were strewn up against walls or lying on the street, their joints bent at awkward angles. All had several wounds, which began to drain their crimson lifeblood onto the concrete.

The reason Jace had came to this particular battle was that he knew both of these gangs were in connection to the human slave trade. He had been doing research on it for the past few weeks and had already planned on taking it out. It was only when Bail Organa sent him that message that he truly knew the extent to its power and corrupting influence. If they were large enough to gain the attention of the Rebel Alliance, then it truly was a major threat, more than a few common rapists or cutthroats.

The two gangs were both aligned with the slave ring, which had no publically known name, and were competing with each other to determine who would join the ranks among the private guards of the 'merchandise'.

It was their way, he assumed, of making sure no one infiltrated the group. Few would be capable of killing innocent bystanders in a street fight just to take down a slave ring that few even knew existed. In a way, it was successful, since most of the time, only a few members of the gang survived, and they had killed several people on all sides of the conflict.

Jace walked up to one of the boys who still conscious, a mere thirteen-year old. Blood dripped from his shaggy brown hair and into his hazel eyes. The child looked up with a pained expression on his face, tears threatening to show themselves to the world.

"Is it over?" he croaked weakly. He reached out to Jace with his only remaining hand. The Jedi noticed the lack of a ring finger.

He took it within his own and grasped it tightly, but still making sure it did not hurt the boy. "It's over. I'm going to help you."

A look of relief washed over him. "Thank you…" His eyes closed, and he had a smile on his face. He was not dead, thankfully, Jace could sense that.

Jace made sure to take all of them to his motel room where he would treat them for their injuries-most of which he caused-and would question them on the slave ring. Hopefully, they would know something about it. If not, then he'd get them to the nearest police station that was not overrun with corrupt officers or being used as a gang's base of operations.

The only problem would be getting a dozen people back to his room without much notice. But then again, a massive Force push was not the most conspicuous of actions.

* * *

**Author Fighter Headquarters, Los Angeles  
Day 1  
1450 Hours**

The Author Fighter task force selected by Nukid had all gathered in a small, plain room. Hurricane's Quill and Ranger24 stood on opposite ends of the room, leaning against the walls. Phoenix of the Darkness and Mistress of Dan stood with each other near the center, with Airnaruto and X Prodigy wandering aimlessly.

"Where the hell is he…?" Airnaruto muttered. Nukid had been nearly fifteen minutes late to the assembly of the meeting he had called up. Being late to one's own meeting, that was rather embarrassing.

"Calm down, Air. He'll be here. Eventually," Phoenix reassured.

As if on que, Nukid finally entered the room, a single piece of paper in his hand. Almost immediately, he was assaulted by several curses, damning him for his tardiness. For several moments, nothing could be heard in the room, minus the incomprehensible scolds. When they finally ended, Nukid had an aloof look on his face.

"So, I guess you want to go in this mission blind without any info, huh?" He thrust out the paper he had with him, which Quill quickly leaned over and grabbed. He scanned the paper quickly before passing it to Dawn. For the next few minutes, the group all read the paper in silence.

Ranger was the last read it. "So, it's not a small cult, but pretty much the entire gang world of L.A.? This is going to be fun."

The others nodded, but not out of agreement. Quill just wanted to get rid of these slavers and be done with them, as did most of the others. Ranger was probably the only one who would gain any real enjoyment from the elimination of the slavers. Nukid may enjoy fighting them, but whether or not he gained a real sense of excitement from killing them was up for debate.

The paper he had brought in had very specific details on the cult, like the extent of its power spreading to at least the majority of Los Angeles, or how gangs would fight each other to gain the respect and employment of this cult. With influence like that, they would be a difficult opponent to truly destroy.

X Prodigy stepped in. "Where are we heading to first?" No one could see his face beyond the Hollow mask that he wore.

"First off, downtown. That's where most of these guys are at. We just need to find a gang, beat the crap out of them, and find out what they know," Nukid answered.

"And if they don't know anything?" Dawn asked.

"Then we move on to the next," Quill said, beating Nukid to the punch.

They all nodded and left the safety of their luxurious home, and headed into the cruel and dark truth of the Los Angeles criminal underworld.

* * *

**Abandoned Factory, Los Angeles  
Day 1  
1529 Hours**

Hurricane's Quill, Ranger24, and X Prodigy crouched near several open windows that dotted the exterior wall of the factory. Each had their own gun resting on the windowsill, all aimed at one or more of the gang members that resided within.

Quill made sure that Dragon Breaker was armed with high-explosive rounds, so he would not have to shoot twice at the same opponent. His target was a turret operator. By some unexplainable means, many of these small time gangs had gained access to military technology, like sentry guns and assault rifles. If anything, it just further showed the strength of the criminal underworld and its connections.

The sentry gunner was working on a group of computer-automated turrets set up on movable tripods. They were all set up from a small ammunition crate attached on the side of the tripod's base. The front of the gun, also connected to the base, was identified by a large multi-barreled chain gun, which was folded downward to show that it was both deactivated and readily movable.

Of all the ones in the factory, there was a total of five, all deactivated, thankfully, and unable to do any real damage. Assuming that Quill and Dragon Breaker killed the turret operator _before_ the guns was activated. Then, it was matter of luck, because the sentry guns were equipped with a highly durable metal plating, and the automated targeting system would lock-on to someone within seconds, easily gunning them down in seconds, due to being able to fire several dozen rounds a second.

X Prodigy came along with his dual pistols, Dawn and Dusk, each trained at the heads of two separate guards, each by the main door. Both had body armor on, so a headshot would be the quickest and most effective way of killing them. If not, then Dawn and Dusk could easily tear through the body armor, it was just far easier to blow apart an unarmored head, than a fully armored torso.

Ranger, unlike the others with handguns, had a full-fledged sniper rifle on hand: a Barrett XM109. The crosshairs rested on the head of the supposed ring leader of this particular gang. It was an assured kill, because the head would be blown to bits due to the power of the rifle, and Ranger's own accuracy.

The leader was equipped with far more armor than the rest, coming with a helmet that covered everything except his face, and his armor covered not just the torso, but his entire body. Even down to the toes and fingertips. Luckily, the Barrett Ranger had on him had armor-piercing rounds, so in theory, one shot would be enough to get through that helmet.

Or if luck was on his side, just his face. Either way, he was a dead man. As typical sayings go, if the leader is killed, the rest shall follow shortly. More or less how they go, anyway.

Once they received the signal from Nukid, who stayed with Airnaruto at the main entrance, several of the guards would be killed off, with the two charging in and tearing through the remaining forces. The designated snipers would provide additional cover with their weapons.

Meanwhile, Mistress and Phoenix would use this as an opportunity to sneak around into the back of the factory, and search for anything that might lead them to the source of the Darkside crime syndicate. The entire attack was just a distraction for them.

The three snipers all heard the go-ahead signal: three whistles, the first two being long and drawn out at rather low pitch, while the last was a quick, short, and directed whistle at a very high pitch. They all fired.

The turret gunner's entire head and upper chest exploded in a brilliant display of gore. The arms fell off milliseconds after the shot had made contact, with nothing being able to support them. The body collapsed forward, blood pooling around it.

Similar fates befell the door guards, who were struck by the mixture of light and dark elemental bullets, courtesy of Dawn and Dusk. Several bullet holes filled their bodies, due to the automatic nature of the two handguns. Blood drizzled out of each new opening, while the newly deceased bodies fell on top of each other.

For the leader of this gang, the anti-personal round tore through his left eye and out the back. He was thrown back violently, blood spurting from the wound. One could easily see the eye resting on the ground, a perfect hole going straight the center of it.

The rest of the factory sprang into chaos, firing randomly at the windows, walls, roof, and even each other, trying to figure out who performed the attack. About half of them were killed by a mixture of sniper fire, and friendly fire.

For about a minute, Nukid and Airnaruto waited. Then, the two nodded at each other. Airnaruto set several exploding tags on the central door, and the two backed up several meters. Soon, it exploded. They charged right in, amidst the hail of gunfire and curses.

* * *

Using a back entrance the gang had apparently never found, Dawn and Phoenix made their way into the factory, starting with the sublevels. They searched each room thoroughly, but all they could find was guns, doodles, and for some of the…primitive, members of the gang, used condoms and pornography.

Needless to say, the two were disgusted by it.

As they progressed, the two could hear the fighting get louder. The gunshots could be heard more easily, but the floors of steel blocked the numerous curses being yelled. Eventually, though, the two found what appeared to be an office.

It was nothing special, just a desk, with a few cabinets. Most had files in them, though one had a large hunting rifle, and another had the armor of the Japanese samurai, including the katana they were famous for using.

However, compared to the rest of the rooms they had found, it was much more respectable and official looking, so it must have been the office of the leader. The two searched the room, though Dawn had to occasionally plug her nose, because she could still smell the numerous acts that had been done there. Even the leader was a pervert, apparently.

After several minutes of searching, the two came across a single file that they wanted. It was entitled: Newest Contract. It had been made yesterday, apparently, so it was fairly up-to-date on the current timetable.

Dawn opened it up while Phoenix kept an eye out, in case someone was not up there fighting and was down there, waiting to stop them. "Anything yet, Dawn?" she asked.

Dawn nodded. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff here. Troop movements, profit accounts, a weekly quota of slaves, everything."

"Then download and let's get out of here!" Phoenix exclaimed, but kept it down to a whisper.

"Alright, but something doesn't add up. The numbers here are pretty small, too small for a coast-wide, or even a city-wide operation."

"So, you're saying it isn't the full picture?"

"That's what I think. We either haven't looked hard enough, or they just have a small portion of the picture."

"Well, maybe we shou-"a blaster shot flew right past Phoenix's hair, sizzling some of the stray strands of brown hair. They both turned around slowly to see a man in red armor; his helmet sported a T-shaped visor. A blaster pistol was in his hand, aimed at Phoenix's head. At his left was a Rodian in similar armor, only it was black. He lacked any real weapons, but still maintained an intimidating atmosphere. Whether it was due to his strong posture, almost demonic armor, or just the mystery behind the helmet, was unknown.

"If you'll excuse, that's our information you are stealing," the man in red said, his voice possessing a New Zealand accent. He readjusted his aim at Phoenix and pulled the trigger.

* * *

The last of the guards fell to the ground, dead. The snipers had left their perches and joined Nukid and Airnaruto in the main room of the factory, occasionally kicking the bodies to make sure they were dead. The ones that were not completely dismembered, that is.

"Well, that was fun," Ranger said, slinging the Barrett across his back, beneath his green cloak.

"It was, too bad they didn't give much of a fight…" X said, looking around at the dozens of corpses that covered the ground.

"Well, we should probably go check on Dawn and Phoenix," Quill said, already heading for the back stairs. He was stopped by an incredible pain shooting up from his ankle. He stumbled a bit, using one of the nearby crates for leverage. He glanced down at his ankle to see it bleeding from a gunshot.

It was silent, and no one knew where it came from. They all looked around until their gazes shifted upwards, towards the raptors. Sitting on a raptor was a gold armored man, with a sniper rifle in his hand.

"Who the hell are you?" Airnaruto yelled at him. He was met with silence and another shot being fired into his shoulder.

"_Aruetiise_, this is our target. Leave," he commanded.

Nukid stepped forward. "And if we don't?"

The question was seemingly ignored. The only possible response was the dual blades being pressed against his neck. Nukid turned his head slowly to witness a more feminine figure in orange armor behind him. Two blades sprouted from her wrist gauntlets, and crossed each other at his throat.

"This is what will happen if you don't, _aruetii_," she said, pressing the blades up even closer to his throat, a small trickle of blood falling down from his neck along her sword.

This would be…problematic.

* * *

_**Aruetiise**_**-traitors, outsiders**

_**Aruetii**_**-singular of **_**aruetiise**_

**_I'm kind of iffy on this chapter. I liked writing it, but I feel as if it was kind of forced. I'm still satisfied with it, but that may change depending on how you all take it. And please, if I got you wrong in any way, do not hesitate to correct me. It will only help me write you better in the future, so I can give your insert the honor he/she deserves._**

**_Hope you enjoyed it!_**


	4. Chapter 4

**Abandoned Factory, Los Angeles  
Day 1  
1500 Hours**

"Sir, the informants are inside," reported Six-Six, brandishing a massive grenade launcher.

Tal Ordo nodded at him and approached the front door to the factory. He knocked on it three time, before someone let him in. A young girl, perhaps fourteen, sixteen at the oldest, let him and the rest of the mercenaries in.

The entire place was filled to the brim with teenaged children working on military grade weaponry and armor. Just how the _shab_ did they get all this crap anyway? They either have really pissed off the military of some country dumb enough to be robbed from by a bunch of kids, or these gangs have better connections than was previously thought.

Good, it meant a better fight.

The mercenaries walked loosely in a single file formation, Tal at the front. Silas held the rear. Fi stood right behind Tal, and Six-Six stood behind him. They received several glances from the kids, most, if not all being of distrust and caution. That was smart of them.

After several minutes of following different guides into the factory's sub-levels, the four finally managed to find the office of the man in charge of this gang.

He was older than the rest of the gang, because a wrinkle or two threatened to pop out amidst the corners of his very dark, almost black eyes. His hair was a shaggy mess of black, which could probably blend in with a pitch black room. His skin was dark in color, being of African descent most likely.

"So, you run this place?" Tal asked, keeping his visor aimed at the man. With the helmet on, he could easily observe the entire room without anyone noticing. As long as he made sure not to move his head in any way, that is.

"Yes, and you run these mercs?" he asked. His arms were folded behind his back, while his feet were propped up on the desk. Tal glanced in the corner to see a pair of women standing guard, each with a Russian Saiga shotgun in their hands. Good weapons, semi-automatic shotguns were much more powerful than mere pump action ones.

The women were most likely his person guards, and if he guess right from his HUD's readings of the room, his personal concubines. Disgusting _aruetiise_. It made Tal sick to the stomach.

"Yes, I lead these soldiers."

"So, I assume you are the infamous Tal Ordo, the one who has come to kill my boss?"

"And you are the infamous Zulu, who wishes to take control of your boss's organization?"

"We are on the same page then, Ordo."

Zulu-his codename because no one knew what his real name was-had been a part of Servitus's operations for years, but now believed that it was time for the old man to retire. He knew that the most powerful man on the West Coast would not do that without a fight.

"So, does that mean my original contractor was lying to me?"

"Yes it does, Ordo. There is no disgruntled father or husband who wants you to kill Servitus. No one with enough money to pay your dues, anyway. They are all either dead, or living on the street."

"Understood, sir. However, I need to make one thing clear to you." Tal pulled out his blaster pistols quickly, faster than one could expect. A pair of shots was heard, and the two guards/whores were dead on the ground. "I don't like being lied to. Neither does my team."

Zulu merely nodded, his eyes widened in fear. He had seen people killed, he had ordered their deaths and done the killing himself often. But to see his two most skilled guards killed like that was…unnerving, to say the least.

"Now that is out of the way," Tal began. "We can get down to proper business now."

Zulu shook his head while he searched the drawer on his desk, and pulled out a small flash drive. He handed placed it on the desk and scooted it over to Tal.

"This is all the information I have on Servitus. Kill him, and you get your pay." He was also tempted to order him to pay for the deaths of his two guards, but knew that all he would get for payment is a blaster to the head.

Tal grabbed the drive and handed it to Fi. Using the private COM channel, he ordered the Rodian to run a scan on the drive, make sure nothing is corrupted or had a virus on it.

"Thank you, sir. Silas, mind helping me get rid of the corpses? They're starting to stink." Silas nodded at him and picked up one of the bodies, while Tal grabbed the other one. They threw both over their shoulders and marched out.

Zulu sighed as he sat back in his seat, running his hand through his hair. This was a mistake, and he knew it. However, he needed to kill Servitus if he ever wanted to get the power he needed to take control of the West Coast.

"Six-Six?" Fi asked, glancing at the clone. They were on a private COM channel, so only they could hear the conversation.

"Yeah?"

"The information's fake. None of it matches up with Kom'rk's findings."

"Why would he lie to us? He wants to get control, and he needs us to get it."

"I don't know. Maybe he grabbed the wrong drive."

"Wait until Ordo and Vel get back. Then we'll figure out what to do."

"Right."

* * *

The two mercenaries carried the corpses out back, sneaking around the main room of the factory to avoid a commotion.

"Tal, good shot back there. Scared the shit out of someone's pants, that's for sure," Silas said, trailing behind Tal.

"It was nothing. They didn't even have any armor on. Stupid sluts."

"I'm guessing your scans showed the same thing mine did?"

"Yep. Like I said, 'stupid sluts'."

"Well, they are _aruetiise_."

The two laughed for a minute. "Good point, Silas."

When they finally got back to the dumpster, it was then saw a trio of men standing on the fire escape of the factory, peering weapons into the windows. The two took cover quickly.

"Servitus's hit men, maybe?" Silas wondered aloud.

"I don't know, keep an eye on them. I'm warning Fi." Tal got onto his and Fi's private COM channel.

* * *

"Commander Ordo?"

"Fi, be careful. Enemy snipers on taking position along the factory windows. They are not in sight with you, but every single person on the main floor in is in their kill zone."

"Understood, sir." Fi would tell the commander after this ended. Now was not a time to tell him that their information was wrong.

The channel was cut.

"Mr. Zulu, there's a problem," Fi said.

"What kind of problem, mercenary." Zulu placed extra emphasis on the word "mercenary", making it sound like an insult.

Fi involuntarily clenched his fists. His name was 'Fi', not mercenary. The way he said it, it was like being a mercenary was the worst thing you could do with your life. Well, who will kill your enemy for you, _di'kut_? Your men are too incompetent, and you yourself are far too weak.

It was them, the mercenaries, who are doing your dirty work for you. And you have the audacity to insult us? Not only with your words, but with your trickery? You will pay for that _aruetii_, you will pay.

"I just got word from Commander Ordo. There's some commotion in the main floor of the factory. You might want to get up there and restore order."

Zulu sighed as he stood up. "Fine, I'll be right back." He walked out of the room and into the floor above. Mere seconds later, the shooting started.

Six-Six looked at Fi and shook his head. "Did you have to kill him?"

"Just means we get better access to his personal files."

"Good point."

For the next several minutes, the Fi hacked into Zulu's computer and searched his files on everything that would lead them to Servitus. Mostly out of curiosity, now that Zulu was dead and they could not collect a payment from a corpse.

Fi did not get far before finding out a massive bounty placed on Servitus by Rebel Alliance. Though they had no idea who he was, all they knew was that he coordinating the slave trade in Los Angeles. The Rebels must have thought he was shipping slaves to work for the Empire. The bounty: over five hundred thousand credits. Commander Ordo would love this.

The two were stopped from their hacking spree by the sound of two people searching the rooms down the hallway. They quickly signed out and hid, hoping to get the drop on whoever was down there.

It took a few minutes before the two finally arrived in the room, a pair of young women: one with long brown hair, a black duster, and a gauntlet on one hand. The other had slightly shorter brown hair, but was covered in scars.

The Mandalorians watched as they searched the same computer files as they did before, and even got to the exact same information as was on Fi's flash drive, considering what they heard the two girls talk about. And he had placed one of his spy drones on the wall and saw the information they had anyway.

So either Zulu had been given the wrong information by someone else, or Kom'rk was wrong, or something else which FI could not think of. It was most likely the first one, since Kom'rk was _never_ wrong. Out of all of the professional information brokers in the galaxy, he is one of the best.

Still, there might be information they had not found, since they only had a few minutes of work. So, the two chose to act.

Six-Six stood up from his hiding spot, opposite the room the two were in, and fired a shot from his blaster at the younger of the two girls, the one with the duster and gauntlet. He purposely missed it, just to scare them, hoping they would run.

Fi stood up next to him, ready to do what he could in these close-quarters. Hopefully, his martial arts training and droids would help him.

"If you'll excuse us, that's our information you are stealing."

* * *

When the fighting started, Tal and Silas remained outside, waiting for an opening. If they wanted to, they could have easily snuck up on them and killed without much fuss, but the two wanted to see exactly what damage they could do.

When the fighting stopped, and the snipers went inside, the two followed them in. However, to make sure that if needed, they could strike without them knowing, the two used the windows to crawl in, instead of the front door.

Silas walked stealthily along the platforms near the windows, preparing to jump down and strike them if necessary. Tal pulled himself up into the raptors and unhooked his Verpine sniper rifle from beneath his jetpack and took aim at the one with silver hair.

He opened up a private COM channel with Silas: "On my count, we attack. Make sure they know what they're up against. We don't want any unneeded bloodshed. It'll be worse for us in the end."

"Yes, sir," she replied. The channel was cut. Tal fired. The round tore into the silver-haired one's ankle, nearly tearing it off. He stumbled, using the crates for leverage.

The entire group searched for him, and after a while, they saw him. One of them stepped forward and yelled at Tal. "Who the hell are you?" Tal answered by shooting a round into his shoulder.

"_Aruetiise_, this is our target. Leave."

Another one stepped forward, this one with blonde hair. "And if we don't?"

Tal gave the signal to Silas. She leaped down from her perch and sprinted up behind Nukid, her vibro-blades ejected from her forearm guards. She crossed both blades in the shape of an X at his neck.

"This is what will happen if you don't, _aruetii_," Silas said silently. She pressed the blades further against his neck, drawing blood. It trickled down her blade and onto her orange armor.

The man in the green cloak charged at Silas with his sword. "Die bitch!"

Silas glanced at him casually and sliced both blades across the blonde one's throat. However, they merely slid off, no blood being drawn whatsoever. Silas had no time even ask herself why as she leaped away from the massive sword.

"Thanks, Ranger!" the blonde one yelled, as he recovered. The green cloaked one-Ranger-nodded at him as he charged Silas again with his blade. This time, Silas met him head, parrying each of his strikes with her own. It was a good thing that her blades were made of _beskar_.

Tal took aim at the one wearing a mask and fired, but missed. Not because of bad aim, but because the masked one was gone. He was there the very second he fired, and then, he disappeared. How was that possible?

Tal was no closer to his answer when he knocked off his perch by a powerful kick. His jetpack activated, and he flew a good ten meters before stopped. He tried to find the source of the kick when he was once again beaten by a multitude of kicks and punches.

He barely felt the hits, due to his armor, but they were strong enough to keep his body off balanced. It was impossible for him to aim like that. The only solution would be to not aim. And Tal had one weapon in his arsenal that did not rely on aiming.

He flew back towards the ground, still being hit, but was able to get close enough to drop his sniper rifle on the ground without breaking it. Moving quickly, he flew back into the air and held his right hand over his left wrist gauntlet. He pressed a small button as a burst of flame spewed out. He twisted and turned, covering everything he could in a 360-degree field. Anything that was within five to ten meters was burned to a fine crisp.

Finally, the masked one fell out of the sky, covered in flames. He had a pair of silver gauntlets and boots on him, with no sign of the massive blade he previously had. The one who Tal had shot in the shoulder approached him, performed several hand signs that Tal did not recognize, and a burst of water appeared, dousing the flames.

"Thanks, Air."

"No problem, X."

Air, X, Ranger. Strange names, indeed.

Tal was shaken from his thought as he glanced down at Silas, parrying each of Ranger's blows with little trouble. Her dexterity proved to be her strength. However, glancing back at the others, he saw the silver-haired one aim his double-barreled revolver at Silas. Tal quickly pulled out his blaster pistol and fired at him, but the shot was fired.

Ranger, seeing the silver-haired one fire, jumped back just in time. As Tal's blaster bolt hit him square in the chest, the round fired from his revolver struck Silas. Apparently, it was similar in function to a tank mortar of some kind, because Silas was sent flying from the force of impact. From what he could see, her armor was cracked in several places, and blood seeped through the more flexible, more vulnerable, parts of her armor-namely, the joints.

Tal raced down to her, constantly checking her bio-signs on his HUD: broken bones, excessive bleeding, and other things that would prove fatal to anyone. Even her _beskar'gam_ was not strong enough to protect her from that kind of hit.

"Silas! Silas, can you hear me?" Tal yelled into their COM channel.

A few moans were heard on her end, and then a gurgling of blood.

Tal shook his head and picked her up and tried to carry her out. He activated his jetpack and flew out. "FI, Six-Six, we're leaving."

* * *

Phoenix ducked underneath the blaster shot, but missed by fractions of an inch. It singed off more of her hair as she charged them, summoning her own Keyblade, Firebird. Another blaster shot was fired, but was aimed poorly and it hit the wall harmlessly.

Phoenix swung it at the red-armored one, and struck several times against his armor. While he fell back, nothing she did seemed to do any real damage. Dawn charged forward and hit the Rodian square in the T-visor and he was sent reeling back.

The Rodian ran back several meters, before looking back. His face was covered by the helmet, but one could have sworn he was smirking. Several dozen small drones all fizzled into sight, a blue electrical field covering them as they became visible. All of them targeted Dawn and opened fire.

The werewolf tried dodging them, but there were far too many, and many of the shots hit her. Thankfully, the drones were not designed for completely lethal action, so the shots only stung, but did not kill. They were strong enough, however, to keep her still and pinned down, unable to retaliate.

Phoenix still charged the red-armored man, hitting him where anyone else, even if they armored, would have been severely crippled. His armor, however, was not so easily broken. Whenever she tried to hit him in the more vulnerable areas around his joints, he block with his more powerful armor plates. It was a virtual stalemate.

Finally, Phoenix grew tired of the useless attacks and used her Power Stone to increase her own physical strength and her Agility Stone to increase her speed. Hopefully, they would have given her enough juice to tear through his armor and beat the ever loving crap out of him.

Phoenix, charged at him once more, only far faster than he previously thought, and smashed her Keyblade upon his breast plate. The armor dented as he was thrown back by about half a meter. He fell to the ground, having lost his balance, and held his chest in pain.

The Rodian approached Dawn, and halted the firing of his droids. The blaster fire ceased, and he came ever closer to her. Just as he was about to check any potential injuries she might have received, Dawn delivered a quick uppercut into his chin. His head reared back before he fell to the floor.

Dawn held her hand, the armor having hurt her when she punched it. Her entire body ached from the constant barrage of blaster fire. When she finally hit him, the droids resumed their barrage, only now she had time to run. Dashing out from their center of fire, she grabbed the Rodian and used him as a shield, keeping them from hitting her. The droids did not fire once.

The Rodian finally recovered from his hit, and snuck his leg in front of Dawn's tripping her and causing her to fall. He hopped out from her hold before she fell and his droids rushed to him. They all began to fire at her once more.

The Rodian halted their fire again, minus a few who would continue shooting at her limbs to keep them restrained with a specially designed laser to numb her body. Once that was accomplished, he sat a top of her, wrapped his arms around her neck, and began choking Dawn.

Her eyes widened at her windpipe being crushed, unable to breathe. She struggled to move, but her body seemed too heavy even for her to move it. After a few minutes, she began to pass out. Darkness consumed her vision.

Phoenix stood above the red-armored man, Firebird ready to strike him down if he got up again. However, he did not. However, his head began to nod like he was talking to someone. Was he crazy, or did he have some type of communication device in that helmet? She did not find out.

The man turned his left hand face-up to reveal a small remote. On the remote was only one thing: the stereotypical big red button. His thumb slid over it and pressed down. The entire sub-level began to explode.

As Phoenix was too distracted by the ensuing explosions to notice, he jumped up and clubbed her across the face. His hard gauntlet tore across her skin and several droplets of blood sprayed across the floor. She was then kicked in the gut, and finally his helmet slammed against her head. Blood dripped from her forehead as she stumbled and finally collapsed to the ground.

He merely looked at her before running to the Rodian and pulled him off of the unconscious Dawn. The two began to run for the exit, leaving the two women behind to die in the fiery explosion.

* * *

**I was sick today, so I figured I'd work on this a bit. Ended up writing it all in one day. Sweet.**

**Sorry if you got confused since I was jumping all over the place. Well, hope you enjoyed it. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Motel Room, Los Angeles  
Day 1  
1525 Hours**

After several frustrating problems with trying to get all of the gang members back to his room, Jace finally succeeded. However, before he could begin their interrogation, he had noticed that he had left the television on when he first left, still on the local news channel. What he saw disturbed him immensely.

Somehow, a private journalist who had been stalking the people known as the Author Fighters to get a major scoop on them had followed a group of them to a small factory on the outskirts of town. When they arrived, he saw them single handedly kill an entire gang mercilessly. It was one of the more powerful gangs that had almost a hundred people in it.

Jace, to put it bluntly, had almoat no care for the Author Fighters. They were overpowered teenagers playing superhero, only doing heroic actions when they themselves would be benefitted from it. Yet they were still revered as the heroes of Earth.

True heroes that fought the horrors done to the innocent people were killed everyday by crime, terrorists, and acts of natural disaster, yet they were not cared for by the public. It was the Author Fighters, who sat back and relaxed while thousands of people were robbed, killed, and raped each night in their own city.

And did they care? No, no one cared. Even the people suffering from these crimes called the Author Fighters, people who did not do anything to save them from their suffering. And they ignored those who did do something for them, and often died because of it. Yet the Author Fighters were still celebrated.

Who cares about saving Christmas, when most of the world's children cared not for its real meaning, only the presents that they received, and even many of those children were not eve visited by 'Santa Claus' because they did not believe in Christmas. So why bother with saving it?

Who cares about some magical sword of power that could enslave the world when it was already enslaved by crime, or the tyranny of their own government, or religious extremist who believed the best way to preach their beliefs was to do so with a grenade. If anything, the only thing one world dictator would do would be eliminate this crime and tyranny with its own. WHile it would be a bleak existance, it would be no less bleaker than the one now, and it would at least be one of order and social peace.

However, Jace continued to watch nonetheless.

When the Author Fighters went into the factory, another fight soon started, and four people-three armored figures, with a fourth being carried by one of them-were seen leaving the factory while an unknown source dropped several small bombs on it. The factory began to burn, with the Author Fighters still inside.

The bombs were obviously of weak design, or of incedrinary form, because most bombs would have completely wiped out the factory, not set it ablaze. Jace assumed the latter, because anyone with the money to be able to bomb a building to kill a few people must have had plenty of it.

However, that did not interest him much. What did interest him was the recording of a group of what he assumed to be Mandalorians. That…disturbed him slightly. What further set him off was the sight of one Mandalorian wearing golden armor, which looked exactly like one he had seen before, back when his master was still alive. It could have been the same person, or it could not have been, but he had to know for sure.

Was this the man that ruined his entire life?

Jace quickly grabbed his cloak, made sure all of the prisoners were securely held so that they did not escape, and left.

He moved quickly through the streets to where the recording had claimed to have been. Despite the alarm that had been set off by a factory being bombed with the Author Fighters inside, few people were alarmed. Was it because people thought that they could handle it themselves? Or did the local police not care about them, since the Author Fighters were, in a sense, vigilantes.

Or even more probable was that all of the police stations in the area were under the control of the criminal underworld, and they saw it as a way to get rid of a major nuisance. Of all the possibilities, that was the most plausible. And it scared Jace.

* * *

**Bombed Out Factory, Los Angeles  
Day 1  
1545 Hours**

"Ranger! Quill! X! Air! Where are you guys?" Nukid yelled, coughing every few seconds due to the large amount of smoke and pollutants he had breathed in from the numerous explosions. Somehow, right when the enemy left, a bomb or several bombs had been dropped on them, and nearly took out the factory. It was no on fire, collapsing, and there was almost nothing they could.

Nukid could barely see, breathe, or talk. It was a miracle at all that he could have yelled out those calls to his teammates. As far as he knew, they were either already outside, or they were dead and his talking to corpses. He would have preferred the former.

Scrambling through the burning debris around him, Nukid tried to look around. All he could see was fire scorching everything it touched. The people they had killed just a short time ago, the military equipment they used, and anything else around them. Beyond that, he could see nothing.

"Nukid!" he heard someone yell. It was hard to tell who was yelling it, but after seeing the voice's owner run up to him, he could now tell it was X Prodigy.

"Where are the-"he was interrupted by another coughing fit.

"I don't know. I was looking for them when I found you."

One of the burning raptors began to give way. It screeched before losing all support and falling. It struck the ground with a massive crash, followed by an incredibly loud shriek of pain.

"Shit! Goddamn those people!" Assuming from the very foul language used, it was Ranger. Though, who could blame him from using it in this kind of situation?

"Just hold still! We'll try to get it off!" yelled another person. It sounded like Airnaruto, but no one was for sure.

"Just hurry the fuck up!"

The two British Authors tried to navigate their way to where the very loud curses were without getting themselves killed or put in a place similar to Ranger's. It took a few minutes, but they finally found them.

The beam had fallen on Ranger's back, nearly breaking it. Not to mention it was on fire, which also must have hurt like hell. Hurricane's Quill and Airnaruto tried to lift it off of him, but both were already too exhausted and wounded from the fight and their own wounds from the bombing to do much good.

Nukid and X Prodigy rushed over to help, but even they doubted that in their condition, they would do much good.

"Nice to see you guys could show up!" Quill yelled, his own body's stress evident in his voice. He had somehow been able to recover from the blastershot to his chest by the enemy they had fought minutes before. He would have to ask Quill later on how he survived, but now was not the time.

"I just had to find this guy before we could do anything!" X Prodigy yelled.

"Enough with the catching up!" Ranger yelled.

X Prodigy chose to instead of trying to lift off the entire beam by itself, he would use Sparda to cut it apart, and make it to where they could just push it off of him. Once that was done, they helped Ranger stand up and they made their way out.

Ranger, despite his own strength, could not walk on his own. The beam had broken his entire back and thus made even moving painful for him. Though he hid the pain from the others, they could still tell he was feeling it.

After several minutes of trying to navigate through the burning building and almost making it to the exit, a fraction of the roof fell off, blocking the entire exit off and nearly crushing Nukid. They were trapped now.

"Come on!" X Prodigy yelled, smashing Sparda against the debris. "Let us out, damnit!"

"Quill," Nukid started. "Can't you use Dragon Breaker and some of those high-explosive rounds to blast our way out of here?"

"Can't. One of those might bring the entire place down on us. There's a good chance it will."

"Damn."

"Wait, what about Dawn and Phoenix?" Quill asked.

"They can get out on their own! They have to be having better luck than we are!" Airnaruto yelled

He had no idea how wrong he was.

* * *

Phoenix groaned in pain as she tried to stand up, her head bleeding from all of the hits that she had suffered from the man's attacks. She wiped some of it off with her hand, but it kept bleeding. She shook her head and just chose to deal with it. Especially considering that she had more important matters to deal with.

Phoenix glanced around for Dawn, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her duster to keep herself from breathing in too much of the toxins that were now in the air. Her eyes began to water as the smoke began to fill her vision. She was, however, able to see Dawn, lying on the ground, unconscious.

_Oh no…_

Phoenix ran to Dawn, coughing violently. She looked down at her sleeve and noticed some blood. Whether if it was from her previous wound, or from the coughing, she did not know.

Once she was next to Dawn, she kneeled down to check her pulse. It was still there, but her neck was bruised as if someone tried to choke her. Phoenix tried picking her up, but her own injuries made it impossible to lift her.

She fumbled around for her Power Stone, but could not find it. Maybe she dropped it? She glanced around and tried to find it, but could not. The smoke and fire made it almost impossible to see anything.

"HELP!" Phoenix yelled, trying anything. It was the best she could think of, which was not much. It becomes very hard to think properly when your brain is being bombarded by noxious chemicals, when you already have a head injury.

* * *

Jace finally arrived to see the factory being burned, the entire place being a blazing ruin. He ran up to the main door and took a deep breath. While had no love for the Author Fighters, it did not feel right to him to leave them to die like this. Besides, he could not sense the Mandalorians anywhere nearby, so he might as well do something good when searching for them would obviously be futile.

"If anyone is in there, stand back! I'm knocking the door down!" He hoped they heard him. He gave the people a few seconds to get back, assuming they heard him, before unleashing a massive Force Push at the door, tearing it apart and sending it flying into the back of the building.

Almost on cue, several people ran out, none of them he recognized. While they were running out, he saw part of the roof begin to give out and start to fall. He ran underneath it and created a field of energy to hold it up while they finished their escape.

"Is there anyone else in there?"

One, a silver-haired male, turned to him. "Yeah, there are two girls down in the lower levels!"

Jace nodded at them before moving forward slowly, keeping the roof up. When he came to a point where the roof would hold up and let go. It fell down with a mighty crash, nearly crushing him in the process.

Jace grunted as his shoulder caught on fire before patting it out quickly. He ran down to the stairs, going down quickly. Whenever he got the second to last step, he would just jump down and ignore the last one. Finally, he arrived at the sub-level.

"HELP!" he heard someone yell, a young girl by the sound of it.

"Where are you?" he yelled back, wading through the fire.

"Just keep going down the hall!"

He did so, trying to keep himself from being burnt by the fire, or breathing in the smoke. He heard a small screech and looked to his right before being struck in the face by a metal beam. He was knocked to the ground, his face bleeding.

Jace lost consciousness for a few seconds, his vision blurred by the fire, smoke, his blood, and dizziness of the beam hitting him. Needless to say, it hurt. A lot.

He finally walked far enough to find them, one young girl carrying a slightly older girl. The young girl was slightly younger than he was, probably by about a year or two. The older one was the same, only he would have been the younger one.

"Hey!" the younger one yelled. The older one was apparently unconscious.

"You okay?"

"I'm alive, that's good enough."

Jace nodded, understanding. He glanced behind her and saw another beam swing forward. Jace grabbed her and pushed her aside out of the way. The beam swung past them and fell off its hinge, hitting the ground.

Jace had inadvertently pushed her against the wall, with his body close to her's mostly in an effort to keep the space small and keep them from getting hit by the beam. That did not remove the awkwardness of the space between, however.

"Um…mind giving me a little room?"

Jace stepped back. "My apologies." He picked up the unconscious girl and made his way out of the sub-level. The other girl followed closely behind. It took several minutes, but they got out, just as the factory finally succumbed to the flames and collapsed.

Outside, the others sat on the grass, in pain, and tending to their wounds. The silver-haired one saw them first.

"Dawn!" he yelled, getting up quickly and taking her from Jace's arms. Dawn was her name, it seemed. The others all stood up, except for the one wearing a green cloak, who just sat against a tree. His wounds prevented him doing much else, Jace assumed.

Jace nodded at them and began making his way out, wanting to avoid a big congratulatory news report or anything like that. He absolutely hated that kind of attention, or any attention at all, really. Besides, he had to try and find that Mandalorian and see if he really was the one that he had seen beforehand.

The blonde one stopped him. "You ain't leaving that easy. We Author Fighters take care of people who help us out."

Jace glanced at him before nodding. "Fine. But no publicity."

"Wasn't wanting any myself. Name's Nukid." Nukid extended his hand outwards to Jace.

"Jace Galea." He met Nukid's hand and shook it.

The one wearing a mask got up and greeted him. "Name's X Prodigy. The Hollow Devil!"

Another dressed more casually for the current time approached. "Airnaruto."

The silver-haired one who was holding Dawn glanced at him. "Quill."

The girl whom he had met in the sub-level of the factory nodded at him. "Phoenix."

"And the guy over there at the tree is Ranger. Word of warning: don't piss him off," Nukid warned.

"Why is that?"

"Chances are, he'll kill you. Or beat you pretty badly."

"Duly noted."

Jace glanced at all of them before walking over to the one called Ranger. Despite his obvious strength, Ranger could not fight with a broken back, Jace believed. He would need healing, and only one thing would do that in time for the next fight, which would come very soon. And Jace would not like to be the one that had to protect Mr. My-Back's-Broken with bullets or blastershots speeding by his head.

"Something you need?" Ranger asked, his hood down. He was able to hide the discomfort very well, but Jace had gotten used to telling emotions just by their hidden facial expressions.

"You're hurt."

"Just now figure that out?"

"Lay down."

"Why should I?"

"Just do it."

Ranger grumbled as he did as Jace said, lying down on the grass face first. Jace sat down next to him and placed his hands over Ranger's back. A small blue aura came from his hands and on Ranger's back. His pain began to numb and was soon replaced with a soothing feeling.

"Now, you're going to experience some pain," Jace warned. He closed his eyes and imagined the skeletal system inside Ranger's body, and used the Force to manipulate the bones to move back into place and begin reconnecting to each other almost immediately.

Ranger winced slightly, the pain being rather intense. It only lasted for a few moments before it returned to the soothing feeling.

"I'll have to do it again tomorrow until the bone is finally moved into place and repairs itself. All i'm doing is hastening the process. It'll take a few days to do, but you'll be able to fight."

Ranger nodded at him. "Thanks."

He nodded before walking away. Jace sighed before noticing the blood on his forehead again, from the beam that hit his face. He felt slightly nauseous before finally falling to the ground. Darkness clouded his sight before it finally overtook him.

**Mandalorian Shuttle, Outskirts of Los Angeles  
1630 Hours  
Day 1**

Kom'rk exited the medical ward of the shuttle. He glanced at the three Mandalorians, all awaiting his report on the wounded Silas.

"She's going to make a full recovery from that blast. However, she will require some cybernetic implants to keep some portions of her respiratory and circulatory systems going, since they both suffered heavy damage during the battle."

Tal nodded, his helmet off. His face showed nothing but understanding and calm on it. Despite the obvious panic he had shown when Silas was first hit and when he had brought her in to the shuttle, he had calmed down and was his normal self. The others were similar, if a tad on edge.

"How long, Kom'rk?"

"A few days before she can move, sir. Then, another few days before she can fight again. But, if we get the implants in her by tomorrow, then she'll only need a day or two for recovery. I'll go ahead and requisition the order to the _Indomitable_ tonight, sir."

"Good. What of the factory? Did the shuttle's missiles destroy it?"

"Yes sir, but the enemy was able to escape before the factory finally succumbed to the damage it had suffered."

A flash of what appeared to be rage went through Tal's eyes, but he held it back. "Understood."

"I am very sorry, Tal, but the missiles on this shuttle were not designed for combat. All they were designed for was to scare the enemy away, not for destroying hostile fortifications. Very well-built fortifications, I might add."

"I understand, Kom'rk. There's no reason to explain yourself to me," Tal said.

"I know sir, but I just feel somewhat responsible for all of this. I didn't give you enough information about the Author Fighters and their strength. And the shuttle couldn't even give enough firepower to kill those _shabla_ Authors."

"It's not your fault, Kom'rk. It's my fault. I'm in charge, I take the blame."

"But who exactly is going to punish you, sir? You run the entire _shabla_ company. No one else goes above your head, except for Silas, and that's on rare occasions."

"I can put the blame on myself, Kom'rk. Now, I am giving you a direct order. Shut up, and get me some research on the Author Fighters and Servitus." For Tal Ordo, this mission went from a simple manhunt, to a combination of a bounty hunt, and revenge. While most Mandalorians honored those who bested them in battle, Tal was different. If he was beaten, he would honor them, simple. However, that was not until the war was over, and the battle inside the factory had made this a war.

And the _Cuy'val Darasuum_ had not been bested yet. Far from it. His goal was retaliation, to avenge the near-death of Silas, and to eliminate future problems. If these Author Fighters interrupted his work now, they would surely do so in the near-future. Tal would prevent that from happening.

As for Servitus, the slaver, he would hunt him down and bring his head to the Rebel Alliance. The pay was hefty, and his men needed a good break. A few hundred thousand credits would do just that. Buy some new armor, take Six-Six to a bar and get him a few dances, Kom'rk would get somethign nice for his wife, five kids, and three granchildren, and Fi would probably just go on leave to visit family on Rodia, maybe bring some of his nephews and nieces to Mandalore to induct them into the culture, if his brothers and sisters allowed it.

Either way, that would come soon, but for now, they had to focus on taking out Servitus and the Author Fighters, or else they would not be getting any paycheck from the Rebels.

Kom'rk nodded, snapping a quick salute. "Yes sir!" He left for the cockpit to gain access to his personal computer to do his work.

"And you two," Tal began. "You two are going to stay on the shuttle until either A: Silas wakes up. Or B: I give you an order to leave. Do whatever the _shab _you please, as long as this shuttle is not left. Understood?"

They too gave off quick salutes. "Sir, yes sir!"

"Dismissed." The two scrambled to leave Tal to himself.

After they left, Tal walked into the medical ward and took a seat next to the unconscious body of Silas Vel. Her nude body laid in a bacta tank. The transparent glass of the tank allowed anyone around her to see her body.

A breathing apparatus was placed over her mouth, and her entire body was submerged in bacta, the healing miracle that could easily heal any and all wounds. As long as there as a spark of life in you, bacta would keep you going, was a common saying. And it was true. Mostly anyone placed in a bacta tank, or even administered bacta of any kind, was most likely to survive rather lethal wounds. Considering that they did not suffer the wounds after administrating the bacta, that is.

Tal reached over and hit a small button which closed the door and locked it. He ran a hand along the glass covering Silas's face. "I'm sorry about this Silas. I hope you can forgive me for causing you this pain."

Despite the two sharing a close bond, their differences were clearly defined: Tal was long range fighter, while Silas was purely close range, yet both sucked at their opposite forms of combat. Tal was cool and collected normally, Silas was crude, rash, and blunt. Tal was a natural leader, while Silas was more of lietenant, used to keep everyone else in line. Still they went together like two peas in a pod, two halves of the same coin.

And Tal just lost part of himself when Silas was incapicitated, unable to fight, or speak, or even be conscious while her body underwent a life saving operation that would turn her body into a mixture of sentient and machine. It made Tal angry because Silas was almost a purely natural woman, embracing the natural state of anything, even the primal desires of many complex and intelligent life. Most of it being violent.

For her to be mechanized with devices that had limits that she could not improve herself on would send her into a fury. Her entire life, she had spent imrpoving herself without the help of machines. Yes, she used them in battle, but when it came to improving one's body and mind, she believed it should come naturally, not by outside interference. If it inspired you to make yourself stronger, she supported it. But if it made you stronger without any work on your part, than she was instantly against it. Silas was a strict believer in "You reap what you sow". If you can not do it yourself, you do not deserve it.

For what seemed like mere minutes, Tal stayed in the room with Silas, looking at her body, whispering short stories of their past adventures together, and talking of the times they spent in the True Mandalorians, with people like Jango Fett. Fighting the Death Watch and following the SuperCommando Codex, written by Jango's mento and predescors as Mandalore, Jaster Mereel, to make the Mandalorians honorable mercenaries, their lives were good.

Now, it was just one nightmare after another, in an attempt to make the Mandalorians powerful and feared once again.

Tal checked the internal clock on his helmet. It was already very late in the evening. Somehow, he had spent several hours without knowing it. The Mandalorian whispered one last phrase which, despite all the brave and stupid things he had done in his life, would never utter in front of her or anyone else.

"_Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum_. Sleep well, _cyar'ika_."

Tal stood up and left the room. The light was turned off, and all that was left to illuminate the room was the glowing of the bacta tank and several buttons on the nearby console. Silas slept well in her tank. Peaceful, dreamless, and alone. So the monitors showed.

* * *

**Unknown Location  
1700 Hours  
Day 1**

"I assume the first phase is complete, Servitus?"

"Yes sir. The Jedi has already made contact with the Author Fighters, and the Mandalorians have also made contact with them. The meeting was not pleasant in the slightest, from what my spies report. A battle ensued."

"Casualties, Servitus?"

"The entirety of the Zulu Warriors has been wiped out. One less thorn in my side, Master. I thank you for allowing me to use them as the bait. One of the Mandalorians has been incapacitated, but her death has not been confirmed."

"And what of the young Jedi?"

"He suffered some injuries, but is still alive, Master."

"Good. Keep an eye on him. Make sure that his captives give him all the information they know."

"Understood, Master."

"And if the Mandalorians or the Author Fighters lose their value to the project, have them terminated. Immediately."

"With pleasure, Master."

The computer's audio communication system clicked off. Servitus sighed before glancing at his watch. Another shipment of slaves was supposed to be arriving soon, only for them to be shipped off planet to his master. What they did with the slaves and where they were sent mattered not to him. All he cared about was that he was pleasing his master, and that he was getting paid for it.

In fact, he did not even know his master's true identity, only that he was told to refer to him as "Master". No names, no aliases, nothing but Master. As with before, Servitus cared not. If he truly wanted to, he could have easily discovered his master's identity, with the wide range of spies and contacts he had, but felt that it would not be worth the effort or risk.

He glanced at a mirror that was on the other side of the room and looked himself over, making sure that he looked suitable for his subordinates. His skin was strange for a Darkside, since it lacked the basic blue hue that many of the more common Darksides possessed. His was instead the light color of Caucasian humans, due to surgery he had performed to himself. Who would people be more trusting to? A freak with blue skin, or a regular looking Joe?

His eyes were a deep shade of blue, very similar to that of the ocean. Very calming to people that he was attempting to negotiate with, and made it far easier for him to manipulate them into doing what he wanted. Appearances could make someone better at their job.

His hair was a light shade of brown, and was parted in the center with both sides falling down to the middle of his forehead. Some say it gave him more of an innocent child's look. He just liked the style, and did not care if it helped him in his business dealings or not.

Overall, he looked just like any other person on the street, not a Darkside in charge of a massive criminal empire. That was what gave him the advantage of everyone else in the business. While most others could be easily told a part by everyone, he could easily slip into the crowd and no one would even notice.

Satisfied with his appearance, he left his private quarters to oversee the slave shipment. The slave trade was a luxurious business, and he was proud to be a member of it.

* * *

**Okay, so that scene between Jace and Phoenix was meant for humor purposes only. Not sure if anyone will find that funny or not (probably not) but I wanted to through in a few comedic scenes (on PURPOSE!). **

**But, if you all want me too…then commence the beatings of Tal Ordo by Phoenix of the Darkness!**

**Also, I won't tell you what those last two Mando'a phrases meant. If you know what it means, don't spoil it for anyone else on the review sheet (well, try not to). However, from all the crap that went on, I'm pretty sure it's obvious what they mean.**

**Hope you enjoyed it!**

**Also, I apologize if some of this was misspelled, I am lacking a proper spell check right now, will get it fixed as soon as possible. Until then, I will go the further effort to triple check my work, but no doubt some stuff will still get through.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Be warned of extreme creepiness that is present in this chapter.**

* * *

**Local Hospital, Los Angeles  
0859 Hours  
Day 2**

Jace awoke with a groan. His head felt like it was constantly being split in half. He opened his eyes, blinded by the bright light of the ceiling. It took a few moments to adjust to the sudden brightness, but once he did, he discovered where he was.

A small bed, with white sheets covering his body from the chest down. The room was fairly plain; four white walls surrounded him, with a window to the right of him, and the door directly in front. The window was shut, with burgundy curtains over it. The door was wide open, though no one was outside. This was a hospital room, he knew that from experience.

He noticed all of his clothes, minus his undergarments and pants were neatly folded up on a nightstand next to his bed.

Jace felt for his head, and his fingers rubbed against a bandage wrapped around his forehead. It was there to stop the bleeding from when the metal beam had hit him before.

"Finally awake?" a feminine voice asked.

Jace looked to the side and saw the young girl he had saved, but what was her name again? By the Force, he couldn't remember, probably due to the brain damage the metal beam was very likely to have caused.

"Yeah…" he answered softly, his head still ringing. Everything was slightly blurry, but he could still focus to an extent. He glanced down at his hands to see them shaking slightly.

"You had us worried there. Me, Nukes, Dawn, all of us."

Yes. Now he remembered: Phoenix, an Author Fighter. So they had saved him after all. Surprising, considering how he usually perceived them to act. Perhaps he was wrong, or perhaps it was just paying him back, he did not know.

"You okay, Jace?" she asked, leaning forward. Her hair swayed slightly in front of her face, but was quickly pushed back.

"I am. Thank you."

Phoenix nodded and leaned back in her chair. "You took a hard blow to the head, y'know? While you were saving me and Dawn."

"I know."

"Thank you for that."

"It's what I do. No need to thank me for that, I don't like it." It was not unlike Jace to be accepting of gratitude, especially when he believed that he had to do this job. No one else would, and it was to be expected of him. In effect, not hanks was necessary for doing what he thought was needed.

Besides, she was an Author Fighter. That alone made it hard for him to accept her help in this matter. Just when did they start caring for anyone but themselves? Jace banished that question from his mind with an answer.

Trying to fight a gang on the outskirts of the city was somehow to their benefit. It was not because they cared, but because it would help them. How would it help them, Jace did not know. He did not know all of the details, so he could not predict a positive effect of their attack on gangs.

"Okay, but still."

"Where are your friends?"

"Outside. Hey! Jace is up! Get your butts in here!"

Quickly, the entire group that Jace had met just a few hours before (or at least what he thought was hours) walked into the room, Nukid at the lead. Jace mentally sighed. This would be unpleasant for him. He did not do well with gratitude; giving or receiving it. He just preferred to be in the shadows, not letting anyone even know his name. Curse these people for making him get friendly, curse them.

"Hey, Jace! How you doing?" Nukid asked, stepping forward. A large smile was on his face, and he practically beamed at Jace. It unnerved him, to say the least.

Jace merely nodded at him. "How long was I out?"

"About four hours," answered Dawn, who stood near the door. Her neck was still bruised; Jace expected it would be for a while. He glanced at the others around him.

All were the same, though Ranger had a slight limp in his walk, but was otherwise getting along well. Jace had underestimated the man; he was strong, no doubt about that. He looked to be the kind to take on an entire army without so much of a scratch and let it drag him down.

"Those people you fought, where did they go?"

Nukid glanced back at the others. "We don't know. They took off, and then we got hit. We were too busy trying to get out to watch them leave."

Jace muttered a curse under his breath. "Alright. Thank you for the care, but I'll be going home now." He sat up and attempted to pull the covers off of him and leave.

Phoenix put a hand on his shoulder. "Not like that, you're not." She pushed him back down onto the bed-rather roughly. "You are staying right there until you heal up."

Jace nodded, though he was tempted to tell her _"Since when have Authors cared for anyone but themselves?" _However, he held his tongue.

"So, just what were you doing there anyway?" Airnaruto asked.

"Looking for those people you fought, and saving you." He lied, on the latter part of his statement. He did not go there to save them. He just happened to be the one _to_ save them. He ha no good reason that he could keep his conscience sated with to leave them behind, and the Jedi have always tried to save those in need. No matter undeserving they happen to be.

"Do you know who they are?"

"That's what I was wanting to find out. I do know that they are Mandalorians, from the armor." Jace would not dare to tell them why he wanted to know. No one needed to know that part of his life.

"Well, they're tough. Nearly killed us," Dawn said, rubbing her neck.

"Of course, they are Mandalorians. One does not fight them without getting some scars."

"Well trust me," Ranger began. "Next time we fight, the only one getting any scars is going to be their corpses." Cocky, strong, and everything else that made a warrior. Jace made a mental note to be wary of him.

"Maybe. Until then, we need to make sure everyone is feeling good enough to do that, alright? So that means we all get some rest," Nukid suggested. They all nodded in agreement. All except for Jace, who merely stared at the wall, his mind still running back to that image of the gold-armored Mandalorian.

He was still out there, still killing innocent people, and Jace still did not have his answers.

* * *

**Mandalorian Shuttle  
1000 Hours  
Day 2**

Kom'rk sighed as he continued searching through any and all available sources that would give him and Tal information on the Author Fighters. He had a detailed biography of every single one of their members, something he doubted many people could obtain.

He was tired, that much was obvious. An entire night of endless searching, staring at a bright screen for hours on end. As much as it pained him to say it, it bored him. While he knew this information would come of value in future battles with them, he still could not deny the boredom it gave him, after a restless night of this work. Despite his old age, Kom'rk would have much rather preferred being out on the front line, fighting and killing his enemies in person, not doing so from the cockpit of a non-combat worthy shuttle.

However, he pressed on, and all of his intelligence might end up being the difference between life or death in another conflict with these Author Fighters. And he looked forward to it. He looked forward to being able to plant his knife into the chest of this Roscoso, or being able to shoot the young Kitten Hachi-Chan full of holes, or even able to drop a grenade right in the throat of the demonic Shadow-DJ.

It reminded of a time when he _was_ able to do all of that and more, back in his youth, serving under former Mandalores Jango Fett, and before him, Jaster Mereel. They had both led the True Mandalorians, which was Tal's own revival in the form of the _Cuy'val Darasuum_.

It was currently the most powerful, with the Mandalorian Protectors, led by the new Mandalore, Fenn Shysa, remaining on Mandalore, their home planet, and fighting off Imperial occupiers. A small _Cuy'val Darasuum_ detachment was assisting them, but Tal did not wish to waste all of his forces into liberating Mandalore, in the case that it proved unsuccessful, and they were left with a heavily depleted force, and a very pissed off Empire.

Either way, be it killing Imperial forces, or these Author Fighters, Kom'rk desired a return to his old days of battle, like how any elderly man longs for the days of his youth. Only in this case, this old man still had a lot of fight left in him, and when he was given the chance, his enemies would wish for death to take them. He was sure of it.

Until then, he would do his work dutifully, and would make Tal Ordo, a man whom he considered Mandalore already, proud to have served with this aged veteran of wars long past.

A small beeping forced Kom'rk out of his previous work, and he drowsily turned his head to the source of the intruding noise to discover what was causing it. A small red alarm was beeping, the high pitched whine going off in a very short, accented tone every three seconds. Kom'rk's eyes widened and his entire mind was awake in an instant.

The alarm was from Silas's bacta tank. She was dying.

"Tal!" Kom'rk yelled, already rushing out of the cockpit. He dashed to the med bay, palming the control pad for it to scan his fingerprint so it would allow him entrance. Once the doors slid upwards, he ran in and one look at her body told him volumes.

Her entire body was convulsing violently, her neck appeared like it was about to snap. He quickly keyed in several commands into the terminal interface, draining the bacta fluids from the tank. Once it was clear, he opened the hatch and threw his body onto her's, ensuring that she could not move, More specifically, he used his hands to still her head, to keep it from thrashing about, which would cause brain damage.

Kom'rk heard footsteps behind him, but did not bother to look.

"Get a sedative now!" he yelled, struggling to keep her completely still. A hand extended outward near her arm, trying to get a good angle with which to inject the sedative. The hand possessed all of the familiar features of one Tal Ordo.

Kom'rk finally shifted his weight onto her arm, leaving enough room for Tal to fit his hand and the needle into the bend of her elbow, and enough to keep her arm relatively still. Even with all of that work, it still took a few minutes for Tal to accurately fit the syringe into her arm. When he did, he jabbed it in and used his thumb to press down on the trigger, injecting the fluid into her system.

Within moments, her body was still, with no need for restraint. Both men sighed deeply, and looked at each other; the dull grey eyes of Kom'rk meeting the dark green eyes of Tal Ordo. The look gave both men's feeling on the matter.

_Too close._

Kom'rk sighed once more, closing his eyes and shaking his head, before glancing at the computer. He took two full steps over to it before hunching over it, his hands dancing across the keys at a speed of a hundred words a minute. His cause was to discover why Silas had nearly died because of those violent convulsions.

His findings? Dreams. She was dreaming. What of was impossible to tell. The computer could only tell that her mind was incredibly alert during that time, and it somehow drove her to the point of convulsing.

This was very strange indeed. Even for a man who had seen many strange things in his life.

Kom'rk feared that this would be only the beginning of a long and stressful period, for all of them. Exactly how stressful and exactly how long remained a mystery to him.

* * *

**Mindscape of Silas Vel  
Unknown Time  
Unknown Date**

Silas stood within a small field of crops, underneath a large blue sky, filled with the bright shine of the system's sun and was rarely blocked out from the few clouds that stained the sky. A single farm house made of very simple wood materials dotted the landscape a kilometer away from the field, give or take a few meters.

Silas noticed that she was not wearing her orange armor, or even that she looked even remotely close to what she was supposed to look like at the time of her life. Instead, she wore typical farmer's clothes, torn and stained with dirt and grass. Her body looked more like that of a young school girl, around thirteen years old or so.

Her black hair extended down not nearly as far as she let it did now, with it barely going below her ears. The tattoos that she had applied to her face, as all Kiffar people had applied to them when they were young, were still fresh. She had just gotten them a few weeks prior to this, in her flashback anyway. Her body was still just beginning to grow into a full woman's body as many had made fun of her for starting the actual growth into womanhood later than many others that she went to school with.

Silas knew all too well where she was, though she could not understand why she was there.

This place was her home, the place she grew up at before being adopted into the Mandalorians, the farming planet of Concord Dawn. Her family moved there in her grandmother's time, and they had lived with local Mandalorians through her own childhood.

Her home was destroyed in a battle between the True Mandalorians and the Death Watch when she was this very age, if her assumption was correct. It was where her parents and older brother had been killed by Death Watch forces, looking for a place to stay.

She remembered hiding under the bed, holding her breath, as she witnessed her family murdered, their blood staining the floor. She recalled her brother's blood spilling merely an inch away from her nose, and it took every nerve of her body not to scream.

Her mind also began to replay the mental footage of one of them taking her mother right there, on the floor, beating her as she screamed and tried to force them off of her. The brutal thrusts had caused her to bled immensely from the sacred organ that lied between her legs, and they laughed at her tears of pain and violation. When they had finally released their rotten seed within her womb, they killed her.

She had cried when that had happened, and the two had heard her. They tore the bed up from over her, grabbed her hair, and dragged her out. Both were naked from the waist down, their organs giving evidence of recent use, and just the horrible looks upon their faces suggested a similar fate to her. To lose her virginity to rapists and murderers, the same people who had killed her family and raped her mother right before her very eyes was just horrendus.

Were it not for the well-timed shot of a sniper rifle off in the distance, tearing through the glass window and stirking both men in the heads, she would have been violated and killed. THeir heads had been split in two, almost, and their brains were sprayed over the floor, mixed in with the blood of her father and mother.

Returning to the world around her, Silas looked around her, trying to see if it was all the same as she remembered and it was. The family grew several small fruits, and had made a good living off of the seemingly simple crops.

As she tried to run for the homestead, a sharp pain rose through her body, nearly paralyzing her. It brought to the ground, her entire body being covered in the tall crops. Her body felt like it was being electrocuted over and over again. Her small, fragile body cried out in pain, and her chocolate brown eyes, which still retained the innocence of her childhood, began streaming tears of pain. Despite being a hardened Mandalorian warrior, her body in this dream was obviously not accustomed to pain, and thus, neither was she.

Silas looked up, and separating the grass, was a cloaked figure. The figure was tall, and shadows covered his body. The cloak he wore was as black as midnight, and the hood completely hid his face from any wandering eye.

"Weak," was the only word that was uttered from this shadow of a man.

Silas tried to respond, but the moment her mouth opened, her body felt even more pain tearing into her. The pain quickly silenced her.

"Weak."

Silas cried more, her tears staining her cheeks, and her hands curled into fists against the dirt, picking up several bits of it beneath her rather short fingernails and her small, rough palms.

"Weak."

She glanced up, and the originally tranquil scenery had turned into a burning battlefield, with blaster fire raining across the field, small aircraft detonating in magnificent explosions. She felt a thick liquid on her hands, and looked down. The crimson color of blood stained her hands. A similar feeling came to her cheeks, and after checking that, she soon found that she was crying tears of blood.

"Weak." For a moment, she believed he was right. That she _was_ weak. If she was not, why was her familly dead? Why could she not have prevented the Mandalorian massacre by the hands of the Jedi at the planet of Galidraan? Why was she in this state right now, vulnerable and unable to fight back? Because she was weak, that was why. That feeling was soon gone as a new emotion came to her. Anger.

Silas finally looked back at the figure, and wanted to kill him. A murderous urge arose in her heart, and all she thought about doing was killing him. Rage filled her core, and her tears softened, but instead turned into screams, which many would have mistaken of as screams of pain.

No, they were screams of fury.

"Shut up!"

"Weak."

"I said shut up!"

"Weak."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

"We-"he was stopped mid-word as he was tackled to the ground by Silas. Her blood stained fists tore into his robed face, drawing even more blood. It began to trickle down his robe, and several screams of "Weak!" came from his gurgling throat, until it was replaced with mere gurgling, and then finally, silence.

Silas still beat his face, which no matter how hard she looked, was still nothing but shadows. But the shadow face still bled, and it still screamed, and that was all she needed. Long after his breathing stopped, she still pounded into his face, tearing at skin that was not there, drawing blood that came nowhere, it seemed to her. Soon, his black robe was fully stained with the red of his own lifeblood, and the brown of the dirt that he laid down upon. Her thrashing went from what felt like minutes, to hours, to even days in her mind.

After exhausting herself, Silas stopped her relentless beating, and fell back. Her chest rose and fell with each arduous breath she took, and both hands were covered in blood. No one could see any part of her skin from the wrist down. Small drops of blood had even been able to splash up into her face, yet she paid them no mind.

"Strong," the same voice of the man she had just killed said, despite her having spent an unknowable amount of time making sure that he was dead.

"How…?" she asked, too exhausted to look up. Her eyes remained closed, but that was all that he needed. The world around her vanished, and her body was again replaced with the one she had possessed in the world of living and the waking.

The same figure came to her, still shrouded in his robe of shadows and darkness.

"You have proven that you have strength. You fought your pain and struck me down. That is good. Use it to make yourself stronger. Use it to overcome your weakness." What did he mean by her own weakness? She was a Mandalorian, she _had_ no weaknesses. Though, Silas did begin to doubt herself during the torment, but it was only for a second, and she quickly turned that into power. But still, the Mandalorian could not help but feel as if he was right, to some extent.

He faded, and her entire body fell into great pain once more, before a warm liquid flowed into her arm, and everything became dark once more.

She would not remember this dream for a long time.

* * *

**Now, I know that last scene was a complete and total mindfuck, but just go along with it. It will all make sense eventually (I hope). **

**Well, hopefully I didn't scar you too much with that scene, or with the very boring scene at the beginning. I apologize for that, I just suck at long dialogue scenes that don't really more the plot much. One of my failings.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Mandalorian Shuttle, Briefing Room, Outskirts of Los Angeles  
1030 Hours  
Day 2**

The remaining Mandalorian mercenaries all sat in a loose circle formation around a large rounded table. Its smooth metallic surface looked as if it had been buffed and polished a million times over, and the shine it produced when in adequate light was near blinding. Such light was not present, as the room was only dimly lit, enough for a simple communication when enough of the light was produced by the blue hologram amidst their circle.

The hologram was that of another clone, like Six-Six. Only instead of being a Republic Commando, this clone was a former ARC Trooper, a captain of the abolished Grand Army of the Republic. He was still dressed in the common Phase I armor of the ARC Troopers, with the red shoulder pauldron indicating him as a captain. His battle kama hung loosely around his waist, but still tight enough to confidently fit weaponry in.

This man was ARC Trooper Alpha-77, more commonly known by his nickname, Fordo. Fordo was a renowned veteran of the Clone Wars, having participated in several vital campaigns which earned him many commendations. He was led the Muunlist 10, who singlehandedly disabled a Separatist artillery cannon and paved the way for the Republic army to take over the capital city and capture a Separatist leader, San Hill.

He further proved himself on Hypori, where he led a detachment of ARC Troopers to rescue a group of Jedi who had been in combat with General Grievous. Though only three Jedi survived, and suffered moderate losses to the general, Fordo was able to inflict heavy casualties on the droid forces present.

Finally, the captain further proved himself when he successfully led an entire unit of clone troopers against invading Separatist forces on Coruscant until reinforcements in the form of Jedi Masters Mace Windu and Yoda arrived.

Tal had been able to recruit Fordo into the _Cuy'val Darasuum_ fairly early, with the two having met and become friends during their time on Kamino, and having fought together on several campaigns during the Clone Wars. However, the thing that finally allowed Tal to recruit Fordo was that the clone had little trust of the Empire and of Palpatine.

Fordo had no trust in Palpatine, because the Emperor had continually prolonged the war, spreading out their forces so thin as to give every little planet that no one cared about an equal share of the war. This left the clone forces in so little numbers, that it was almost impossible to take control of and properly hold a planet. And when Order 66 came down, Fordo knew that he could not trust Palpatine any longer, because he knew that the Emperor had planned it all out: to spread out the Jedi and weaken them to kill them.

Tal had been able to make Fordo a high ranking officer in the mercenary company, and Fordo never disappointed him. He always succeeded in his missions, with little to no casualties, and he was well liked by his subordinates.

"_Sir, what is it you need of the _Indomitable_?"_ Fordo asked. His arms were crossed and like the rest of them, his face was covered by a helmet. Tal found it interesting that Fordo was one of the few clones who kept his clone armor, instead of going for the typical armor that most Mandalorians wore. He guessed it was just because Fordo, to an extent, identified himself more as a clone than a full fledged Mandalorian. He would have to speak to the ARC Trooper about that later.

"We have encountered some…resistance down here. They have proven to be a problem, and we fear that this squad alone will not be sufficient to fight it," Tal said, his arms crossed and resting on the table in front of him. His head was up and his body was slouched slightly forward.

_"What kind of resistance, sir?"_ Fordo's New Zealand accent was thick and reminiscent of Jango Fett, who many of the clones received their accent from. Six-Six was no exception to that generalization.

Kom'rk spoke up. "Have you ever heard of the Author Fighters, Fordo?"

Fordo shook his head. _"Never."_

The aged Mandalorian nodded. "They're a group of kids with super powers who got in our way. They were stronger than we anticipated, and Commander Vel was wounded in the process."

_"How badly, sir?"_

"She's in a minor coma right now. She'll recover in a day or so, I think." Kom'rk decided that Fordo did not need to know all of the details, like the convulsing she had just a few minutes before. It would have upset Tal, and that was the last thing they needed.

_"We all know Silas is a strong warrior. For that to happen to her of all people, you must have underestimated them, Captain Ordo."_

Tal shook his head. "Shut it. Both of you. What I was requesting was that you provide support to us from the _Indomitable_. It's right in orbit. You can send down supplies and a squad or two to give us the firepower we need to take them out if the need arises."

Fordo nodded. _"Of course, sir. I can get two squads and several crates of ammunition down to you in mere hours."_

"Thank you, Fordo. We'll see you in a few hours." Tal reached under the table and hit a small button. The hologram winked out of existence.

Six-Six turned his head to face Tal. "Captain, would you mind telling us your plan? You know as well as I do that none of us like being left out of the loop."

Tal nodded, but did not turn to face him. "When the reinforcements arrive, we'll move to attack several gangs and suspected forces that are in league with Servitus. When we find one that gives us the information we need, we will find his base and attack it."

"Sounds easy enough," Fi said. "But why would we need any reinforcements for that?"

"Because, I plan on removing a significant threat to us with these forces."

"You mean the Author Fighters, correct?" Kom'rk asked.

"Yes."

"Unless they get in our way again, there'd be no reason to kill them."

"Insurance, _vod_, insurance." The cost of said insurance would come to them shortly.

* * *

**Local Hospital, Los Angeles  
1203 Hours  
Day 2**

Dawn sighed as she looked over the now sleeping body of Jace Galea. Quill was just outside the door, as everyone else had left to try and find some clues to many questions: Who attacked them and why?

Who exactly was Jace Galea?

What did they all have in common with the slave ring that seemed to bind them all together?

Dawn had no idea what any of these questions meant, but she did know one thing: This was all some screwed up junk they were in.

Her eyes closed momentarily as she crossed her arms across her chest, just below her breasts. She shook her head in an attempt to stay awake, but could not help but let out a yawn. Quill had apparently heard her and stuck his head in.

"Sleepy?" he asked. His face had a slight smile, which brought one that was not unlike his to Dawn's face.

"Just a bit."

"Need a drink?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

Quill nodded and walked in with her, standing on the other side of the doorway.

Dawn glanced at Quill for a moment. "Any ideas what's up with him?"

"None, I'm afraid. He's a Jedi, I know that. And, since he doesn't seem to be particularly conspicuous about that little factoid, we might be dealing with a few of the Empire's lapdogs sometime. Maybe even Big Ol' Vader himself."

"That would be problematic."

"Sure would be. If that happened, we might have to put our little slaver hunt on hold to focus on surviving against the forces of a galactic empire. No easy feat, I might add, since it is a whole galaxy's worth of soldiers and resources."

"Let's just hope they don't find him here, right?"

"And if they do, then let's hope that we got a big bomb somewhere. Preferably up the old Emperor's ass. "

The two shared a very hearty laugh from that, Dawn letting go of her crossed arms and just letting them fall to her sides. They laughed for a few minutes before finally regaining their cool. Though, every few minutes after that, they would think back to Quill's statement, "Preferably up the old Emperor's ass" and their laughter would begin anew.

The quiet peace and calm would only remain for a few more minutes. Then, hell would be unleashed.

* * *

**Streets of Los Angeles, Downtown  
1215 Hours  
Day 2**

"So that's the guy we need to talk to, Nukes?" X Prodigy asked, keeping his Hollow mask hidden from the public eye by using a large hood.

"Yep. From what I've heard, he can point us in the right direction for finding the slave ring."

"Are you sure he'll just go along with it?" Phoenix asked.

"If not, I have something that'll make him talk," Ranger said, smirking. He of course was referring to the Moonsword, which would make anyone talk. As long as nearby spectators did not mind a little blood. Or a lot of it.

"Let's just make sure we're in a private place before going on the killing spree, alright?" Nukid requested.

Ranger nodded, adjusting his cloak from the rather long walk from the hospital to this little section of the city.

A dump, filled with nothing but prostitutes and drug dealers. Nukid's informant just happened to be a drug dealer; cocaine to be specific. A small time dealer, only had about a dozen customers, but still made a killing.

He was a moderately sized man, somewhere in his forties; his hair was a light shade of brown, and in a very shaggy mess. His face was showing signs of wrinkling, mostly around the eyes, which had a very dull brown tint.

Around his body was the stereotypical black trench coat used to store all of his merchandise within. One person, a kid of about ten, was speaking with him, and received a small bag filled with white powder. The boy gave him a credit card, which most likely belonged to his mother or father, and ran off to go snort or smoke the crap he had bought with the stolen card.

Nukid knew that if he did not need this man for information, he probably would have killed him right then. He was despicable, and made up the worst of humanity.

His name was Joseph Crane.

Nukid made the approach alone to Crane, doing his best to keep the hateful glare out of his face. When he finally got within five feet of the man, the dealer looked up and smiled.

"Hello, good sir! What may I do for you this fine day?"

"Know anything about slaves?" Nukid said, not showing any emotion in his face. It was obvious he wanted to get this done with as possible. Afterall, anyone who had a sensible head on their shoulders would not want to consort with this kind of man any more than he absolutely had to.

"Uh…you mean the blacks back before the Civil War?" Playing stupid. Of course.

"No, I mean modern day kidnapping and slavery. Happens to be by a Darkside cult. You do know what a Darkside is, don't you?"

"Don't know nothin' 'bout that. Just an honest to God merchant right here." He pulled out a bag of cocaine from his bag. "Want a hit? First snort, on the house."

Nukid glared at him. He took the bag, opened it, and reached in to grab a handful of the white powder. Once he had it firmly in his palm, he tossed it into Crane's eyes, and then followed up with a knee in his groin.

A rather loud crunch was heard. Judging from the pained expression on Crane's face and the sickening sound, Nukid had broken Joseph Crane's penis. Maybe his balls. It did not matter either , Nukid gave himself a mental pat on the back for ridding this man of what all men value most.

Crane fell to the ground, shrieking in pain. His vocal chords strained and the former deep voice that most men had to some extent was gone, replaced by high pitched screaming not unlike that of a little girl. His eyes were bloodshot, due to the cocaine being thrown in his eyes and obviously doing some minor damage to the eyeballs.

"So, about those slaves?"

"Okay! Okay! I'll tell you about the fucking slaves! Just stop hurting me!"

"Good boy. Now, who's in charge?"

Crane had calmed down a bit, though he was just barely holding back tears of pain. His voice was still moderately high, but it was not as painful as a little girl's shrieks. "His…his name's Servitus."

"And how do you know him?"

"I work for him, kind of. I just bring him some business, getting kids hooked so they'll be easy to get into the business. I just work through agents! I don't know who he is really! That's all I know! Don't hurt me again!"

Nukid nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Crane. Now, I think we made need to bring you us, in case you rat us out. Or in case you remember something that my damage to your dick might have caused you to forget."

Crane nodded, but crawled into a corner, the tears beginning to overwhelm him. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He began to rock himself slightly, whimpering. He was humming some lullaby to try and soothe himself, but it obviously was not working.

Nukid sighed as he reached down to drag Crane back with him to where they could do a proper interrogation. He knew that there was more information that this man had that he was not willing to share, even at the cost of his manhood. Some people had loyalty that not even that could break.

Before he could pick him up, a loud shot rang out, forcing Crane to hide even further in his corner, while Nukid jumped and looked around frantically. What he saw was a small boy, the exact same person whom had purchased the crack from Crane, on the cold concrete, blood oozing from his forehead.

Any and all nearby civilians ran away, screaming in fear. They crawled over each other to make sure that they were not the next one to get shot by whoever the sniper was. A few cars drove across the corpse of the boy who had been shot, obviously showing no care for the body. One man tripped and fell face first, and was trampled by the frightened herd. Chances were, he was killed by nearly fifty pairs of feet crushing his body.

The assassin looked up and saw a man wearing a full urban-camoflauge suit, his entire body covered in the fabric. In his hands rested a rather large sniper rifle. It was aimed right down at him.

"Author Fighter; Matthew; codenamed Nukid. Former member of World Government assassination branch; codenamed Cipher Pol Nine. Target in sight. Prepare to eliminate."

Nukid's eyes widened as the sharp crack of a sniper shot rang out once. Twice. Three times. He was able to dodge all three, but only with the help of Soru. And even then, he came unnervingly close to being killed.

The figure began to reload as another shot rang out. Nukid felt immense pain tear into his lower back as he hit the ground, stomach down. He rolled over on his back to see another man, looking exactly like the first one. There was absolutely no difference between their appearances. Everything was exactly the same.

"Nukid!" yelled someone from behind him. Nukid could not see who it was, nor could he recognize the voice, due to the unexpected and immense pain in his back. He felt around his back and inserted his fingers into the bullet wound, feeling blood and torn muscle tissue against his index and middle finger until he could feel the end of the bullet.

It was larger than most bullets, which obviously did more damage to his body. However, what Nukid did not understand was the strange sickly feeling he was getting. He had been shot numerous times before, and as far as he could remember, bullets did not make you feel sick. They hurt like hell, but did not make you feel like puking.

It was then Nukid realized one thing: the bullet was coated in poison. It was the only logical explanation. He looked up to see X Prodigy running over to his body, hovering above him before his eyes closed. A nice long nap would do good right now.

A very, very long nap.

* * *

"Cover me!" X Prodigy yelled, picking up the unconscious body of Nukid. More shots rang out that tore into his body, and X Prodigy was barely able to keep his body up. He did not know why they were hurting him so much. Regular bullets could not do this much to him, but these were almost able to force him to the ground.

With Nukid slung over his shoulder and blood seeping through his jacket, the Hollow Devil sprinted to the nearest corner and dropped Nukid off. His body slid off of the shoulder and hit the ground with a small thud.

X Prodigy glanced around him to see where the others were at.

Ranger had pushed a dumpster out in the middle of street and was using that as cover as he took potshots at them with a pair of Desert Eagle magnums. A small trickle of blood was running down his cheek, a sign that one of their bullets had grazed him.

Phoenix was behind a street corner, trying to get a good aim on one of the two snipers so she could Gravity Slam them, but with a round nearly hitting her every five seconds, that was becoming hard to do very quickly.

Airnaruto was bunkered down by a large pickup truck, tossing kunai with exploding tags wrapped around them at the two hostiles. The Hollow Devil watched one of the kunai strike the first sniper in the shoulder and explode. A magnificent display of fire and smoke filled the spot where he once was.

When it cleared after a few seconds, the sniper was left unharmed, other than a small hole in his shoulder. Not even any blood was drawn. If there was blood to draw, that was.

X Prodigy drew Dawn and Dusk and opened fire on the two snipers, determined to take them out. A large number of shots struck the second sniper in varying places, his chest being the most prominent.

The sniper did not even feel them and continued firing.

X Prodigy knew that this would be a difficult situation to get out of.**

* * *

****Local Hospital, Los Angeles  
1215 Hours  
Day 2**

Several large explosions rocked the hospital to its core, with patients, doctors, nurses, and visitors being caught in the blasts and the resulting debris. Terrified screams covered up the several gunshots which echoed down the halls of what was once a place of healing.

Now, it was only a place of death.

Dawn moved quickly, without having to be told to do anything. She severed all of the machinery from Jace and picked him up, holding him bridal style. Quill nodded to her and drew Dragon Breaker, poking it out the door to make sure the hall was clear.

Once he was satisfied, he waved at Dawn and inched out, double and triple checking their flanks. He sprinted down to the elevator with Dawn on his flank. They reached the elevator and Quill hit the Down button with his forearm, to keep his aim down the hall. If anyone even looked hostile, he'd be the first one to pull the trigger.

The door beeped as the elevator came to its destination and slid open. Quill turned around to go in, only to be met face to face with the six barrels of an M61 Vulcan chain gun.

He fired Dragon Breaker from the hip and rolled out of the Vulcan's line of sight. The Lunar Exalted pushed Dawn back into the hall, behind the corner. She lost her balance momentarily and almost dropped Jace, but regained herself and the Jedi did not have to hit the ground just yet.

Quill glanced around the corner to see his handiwork. The figure holding the Vulcan was what looked to be a man, fully clothed in camouflaged armor which hid all of his body from the outside world. A pair of bright yellow eyepieces allowed him to see, and a large hole was in his abdomen.

No blood, no wound, nothing. Just a hole.

The man walked forward, with an identical one right behind, holding the exact same weapon as his counterpart. They walked with a calculating pace, each move carefully planned out as if even the slightest inch off of their next step would result in death or failure.

Quill glanced at Dawn and swung his head down the hall, gesturing for her to run. She nodded and did so, rather angrily though. Quill knew that she did not want to leave him there to fight those two alone, but she had Jace, and until he was put in a safe zone, she would only get in the way. The same would have been said of Quill if was the one carrying Jace.

Quill replaced Dragon Breaker's entire chamber with the ragnite bullets, determined to kill these men. With no one around, the ragnite bullets would surely kill them. If not, then there were others ways of fighting other than with heat and iron.

The two men rounded the corner, and began charging the Vulcans. In just about a second, they would unleash a massive volley of bullets at 100 rounds per second. Quill was ready; he was just worried that any of the bullets that missed him might hit Dawn or Jace at the other end of the hall.

Quill brought Dragon Breaker up to eye level and pulled the trigger.

Dawn fell back to the room they were in and set Jace down on the bed. She was in there milliseconds before the firing began. The werewolf laid Jace on his bed, rather carelessly, and began to sprint out the door.

She was stopped by a grenade being set off right in the room. The grenade was on the opposite side of the door she was on, and the explosion tore it off its hinges and right into Dawn. She was crushed against the wall, with the broken door on top of her. Her leg, chest, and arms were burning with pain. Shrapnel had been able to tear into the door and implant itself in her body.

Blood began to drip from her numerous wounds and onto the floor, pooling around her. Another one of those identically dressed men came from the window, a flamethrower in his hands. He approached Dawn and raised the weapon up to her face.

The flame was thrown.


	8. Chapter 8

**Designated Landing Zone, Outskirts of Los Angeles**  
**1245 Hours**  
**Day 2**

Three different LAAT gunships, or larties as some in the former Grand Army of the Republic called them, descended down from the cloudy blue sky. They all used a radar scrambler to keep their presence hidden from any long range sensors, and Tal had made sure to scout the area out to make sure no overtly curious civilians were watching.

Or even worse, hit men of Servitus.

"_Captain Ordo, this Falcon-One, do you copy, over?" _asked one of the gunship pilots over Tal's COM channel. The two gunships were of call sign Falcon, and the pilot he was speaking with was the squad leader.

"Falcon-One, this Ordo, I copy, over."

"_We can't seem to find a large enough drop-off zone. We'll have to do it one at a time."_

Tal cursed to himself. This was a moderate setback. The longer the gunships took, the higher the chance that something would go wrong. And considering all of the supplies and personnel that had to be let off, the risk would be increased exponentially.

Two of the gunships, the LAAT/I model, he knew had thirty men aboard each, along with several additional supplies and rations. While the shuttle had plenty of food and ammo for a small group to last for a prolonged period of time, the additional forces would consume the rations fairly quickly. The LAAT/Is would be of use for quickly moving large numbers of soldiers from one area to another, acting as an excellent transport and giving superb air support with its multiple laser turrets and missiles.

The third gunship, a LAAT/v had sixteen different speeder bikes for quick reconnaissance. Those speeder bikes would be of great use in scouting out several potential attack positions. Not to mention making a swift escape in the need of a strategic replacement of forces, which was just a fancy and less embarrassing way of saying retreat.

Tal turned his head to the side and glanced at Kom'rk. "How long do you think it will take for them to finish unloading everything?"

Kom'rk hesitated for a moment, calculating the exact amount of time for it all to take. "If everything goes right-which it rarely does-then it will only take about ten minutes. If not, then I'm about as stuck as you are."

"Right."

Falcon-One landed first in a small clearing, its hatch doors sliding open as the thirty different Mandalorian soldiers filed out. A multitude of colors sported their armor, each representing their different desires or values.

Obviously, the _Cuy'val Darasuum_ lacked a proper ranking system, which worked for them in a way. It prevented enemy snipers from being able to target their officers efficiently, causing them to fire on low ranking grunts instead. However, it also made it difficult for new soldiers to automatically know who was in command at the time, and could cause confusion in the field.

People who thought would be wrong, due to the use of specially designed Heads Up Displays, which highlighted each soldier with an insignia of numerous bars and stripes. One bar was the lowest rank, while five was the highest. Then it went into curved stripes all the way up to five, and finally stars, with five as the highest. Tal was the only one to possess the five star ranking, as he was the Supreme Commander of the _Cuy'val Darasuum_.

In a matter of two minutes, the entire detachment had been deployed and the Falcon-One had lifted off.

"_I'm going to try to find a proper place for me to land, Captain. I'll radio back in once I've found a suitable place. Falcon-One, over and out."_

The second gunship did a very similar process as the first, landing and dropping off its compliment of soldiers.

The last gunship flew in to land, ready to let off its detachment of speeder bikes.

"_This is Falcon-Three. I am preparing to land. I'll need people to get all of the bikes out."_

"Understood, Falcon-Three. I'll have a squad ready to do just that." Not a full second passed by after the mercenary said that that shit hit the fan.

A rocket screamed by, filling every one's audio filters with the screech. It impacted the cockpit of the gunship, tearing it apart. The entire front half of the gunship exploded, with the rear hatch opening up to drop the speeder bikes out, hoping at least a portion of the shipment would survive. Of the sixteen speeders that were originally in the gunship, only ten survived the blast. When they hit the ground, only four were intact, the rest being crushed by the influence of gravity.

All of the men on the ground sprung into action, drawing their weapons and finding cover. Tal hid behind a tree, both pistols out and ready to fire. "Where the _shab_ did that come from?"

A chorus of murmurs responded to him, all telling him of their ignorance of the matter. Another reason to curse to himself, Tal assumed.

Several more rockets screamed into the opening from the northern perimeter, hitting the Mandalorian positions. Despite the superiority of their armor and their excellent use of positioning, thinning their numbers to avoid cluster shots and the manipulation of rocks and trees as cover, around a dozen were killed by the explosions.

The body parts and multicolored armor pieces of the Mandalorian mercenaries flew across the field. One helmet landed right next to Tal's boot, the end of a torn spinal cord sticking out from under it. Blood soaked the bottom of the helmet and the spinal cord. The T-visor was cracked in several places, with an entire hole in one section, though it was filled by the portion of an eye. Its original iris color was unknown, as only the white portion of the sensory organ was visible.

"Thermals!" Tal yelled into the COM channel for the remaining soldiers, signaling for a switch to thermal vision, the red, blue, and orange hues filling their visors. They all searched the tree line for the exact location of the attackers, hoping for him or her to be giving a large enough thermal reading.

They received none. And the rockets still flew overhead, killing more and more Mandalorians each time.

If they just sat there and kept getting blown up, there would be no way of surviving or fighting back, so Tal ordered something that he was not normally known for doing: a full frontal charge. He gave the order through a series of coded messages that took less than a minute to send out to the surviving forces. Within another five minutes, they sprung up from their hiding places, activated their jetpacks, and flew into the branches.

The tree branches smacked Tal in a number of places, scratching some of his golden paint job, but otherwise, it did nothing to him, along with the several of Mandalorians flying alongside him.

Now that they were all airborne, it was difficult for any of the rockets to hit them, due to their rather quick movements and maneuverability in flight. In fact, after going out in the open, no one was else was getting killed, so Tal's unorthodox move was for the better after all.

However, they still had no luck in finding the source of the enemy. Five minutes after taking to the skies, so to speak, the rockets stopped firing. Ten minutes after the firing halted, there was no sign of the aggressors. Many had believed that they had disappeared, but Tal was not as prone to believe that, mostly due to his own stubbornness. He refused to let his subordinates' deaths be for nothing, or let their killers escape without paying the price of their attack with their lives.

Another five minutes passed before Tal had seen a boot print on the dirt. It was hastily scrawled over, but was unfinished in the attempt to hide it. After magnifying everything within a five foot radius of the print, Tal noticed that the rest of the ground was also scrawled over. Whoever had attacked them had tried to hide their presence, but ran before getting rid of all of the evidence. Amateur.

Tal deactivated his jetpack and dropped to the ground, a small cloud of dirt popping up to his rather hard landing. He glanced around the area, searching for any discrepancies in the surrounding foliage. For several moments, he could find none. However, it was not until he began walking forward that he noticed something.

The second his foot took a step toward the bushes in front of him, they stirred for a moment. Tal quickly approached, one of his pistols gripped tightly in his right hand, while his left forearm rested beneath it to steady the aim, and so he could quickly activate the wrist-equipped flamethrower he had. All he would have to do would be swing his arm out a few centimeters and hit the button on his gauntlet, and whoever was hiding would be subjected to a torrent of flames.

He took a total of five steps forward, before a whirring sound filled his audio filters. Around three seconds later, a barrage of several hundred bullets filled the air. Tal rolled out of the way, but not before several dozen bullets peppered his armor, leaving small dents in his chest plate and helmet. Luckily, none of them did any real damage, and he was more or less safe.

The Mandalorians still airborne all rained down a storm of laser fire down on the source of the barrage. The bullets arced upward toward the Mandalorians, but were unable to really hit anything, due to the rapid movement of the mercenaries.

Tal sprinted around the bush to witness a lone man, dressed in forest camouflage firing a chain gun into Tal's men, and a rocket launcher on his back. No part of his body was visible to Tal, everything being covered by the camouflaged suit. To be able to carry all of that without any obvious strength enhancers or droid carriers must have been a tremendous feat.

Or, he was not human. That was as viable as any reason.

Several blaster shots struck him in the chest, legs, arms, and even his head, but was otherwise unphased by it. Tal snuck up behind him and drew his knife. It was a triple edged knife, forged from _beskar_, Mandalorian iron. It could have easily been used to block a lightsaber, were it not so small and unwieldy in a swordfight. The knife belonged to his father, and Tal used that knife to kill his first man.

The Mandalorian crept up behind the man, and with his knife in a reverse grip, slammed the end of the blade into the attacker's neck. It went in about an inch, before striking something very hard that not even _beskar_ could pierce. Tal quickly ripped it and leapt backwards a few feet.

The man stopped firing and turned around. Instead of eyes were a pair of what seemed to be slits, which glowed a bright red. He seemed to be studying Tal for a moment before speaking.

"Target: Tal Ordo. Leader of mercenary company _Cuy'val Darasuum_. Termination in progress." Were it not for the mechanical tone it possessed, Tal would have laughed at the horrible pronunciation of _Cuy'val Darasuum_.

The chin gun started up again, and Tal was smart enough to fly out before it began firing. He slid the knife back into its sheath and drew his other pistol and began firing.

"We got any heavy weaponry?" he asked Six-Six, who happened to be the first person he flew next to. Rather handy, Tal admitted to himself. Almost too handy to be a coincidence. He decided to brush it off for later.

"I got a grenade launcher on my gauntlet, and that's about it."

"Use it, quick. And double to force. He took a _beskar_ knife to the neck, and all of our shots. Overkill is needed for this _chakaar_."

Six-Six nodded and slung his blaster rifle beneath the right flap, so to speak, of his jetpack before loading a grenade into his gauntlet. It was bigger than most, being large enough to hold a pistol, but inside was a sophisticated mechanism for lobbing grenades with enough force to take out a whole battalion of closely knitted soldiers.

The clone brought his left arm to eye level, steadied himself for a moment, and hit a small button. A grenade was ejected from the launcher into the foliage, and a large explosion was the result.

"What the _shab_ did you use, son?" Kom'rk shouted over the COM. He was then followed by several coughs.

"Just a basic thermal detonator, old man. If it was one of my customized ones, the explosion would have been at least five times bigger."

"That thing went on for about twenty meters! I nearly got fried! You're lucky it wasn't one of your customized ones, because you'd be dead right now, boy!"

"If it was, wouldn't you have been killed?"

"That's exactly why I'd kill you, boy!"

"Settle down!" Tal yelled, into their COM channels, silencing the two. "Someone see if that _chakaar _is dead yet."

One man flew down, a heavy repeater in his hands. He glanced around, the nodded to everyone. "He's dead! Not sure if I can call him a 'him' though…"

"What is that supposed to mean, son?" Kom'rk asked the question that all were thinking. He flew down to meet the young mercenary, and witnessed the remains of the man. Tal joined them within the minute.

Instead of blood, guts, or anything resembling a human's body, was a pile of wires and circuit boards. Instead of a human corpse, was the short circuited remains of a droid.

"I never seen a droid that resembled a human that closely…" Six-Six whispered. Androids were rare sights in those days, and few droids had the capacity to be able to mimic the body shape of a regular person so much that all who saw them actually _believed_ that they were human.

"Fi! Take your drones and collect these parts. Study them. I want to know everything about them ten minutes ago!"

"Yes sir!" Fi shouted, already recalling his drones from their habitats. If anyone could study this thing accurately, it was Fi.

"Everyone else! You are to help us gather up the bodies of our comrades, and give them a proper funeral! If I see any slackers, I'll shoot myself!"

They all set to work rather quickly.

* * *

**Downtown Los Angeles  
1230 Hours  
Day 2**

Another sniper round tore into the car that Ranger was using for cover, smashing through the roof of the vehicle and nearly taking his middle finger off. The Twilight warrior growled a curse before blind firing another three rounds at the two snipers with his Desert Eagle. All of the shots missed, sadly.

"Screw this shit…" he said to himself before sliding the magnum into its holster and thrust his hand over above the car, the palm facing the general direction of the two snipers.

"Twilight Frigra!" he yelled, unleashing a massive blast of the Twilight energy. Ranger forced it to where the blast would be able to reach at least one of the two snipers. He succeeded, while also wiping out the entire street in front of him. Luckily, he was the farthest advanced of the group, so no one important was hurt.

Key word: important.

Cars were mere skeletons of their former, lucrative selves, windows were smashed in, and signs were all but obliterated. The sniper fire stopped all together.

"Suck on that, bitches!"

That was when the sniper fire renewed its previous course. However, they were not firing from the same position as before, not even relatively close. The two snipers were instead firing from _behind_ them.

Everyone was able to adjust themselves to compensate, though Phoenix was almost hit, were it not for her gauntlet being in the way of an oncoming bullet.

"So, any ideas?" Phoenix yelled over the constant cracks of both rifles.

"Distract them for me!" X Prodigy yelled. "Distract them, and I'll sneak up on them and take 'em out!"

"By 'sneak', do you mean 'blow the entire place up'?" Phoenix questioned. A sniper round tore through the window she was under, and whizzed by her ear. She felt it pass by her, and goose bumps formed over her arms for a moment.

"Hell yeah!" the Hollow Devil said.

Phoenix sighed before nodding at him, her silent signal for a 'go ahead'. X Prodigy sprinted into a nearby building and forced his way through room after room, yard after yard, annoying pets, and such, trying to find the building where they were perched on.

Phoenix tried sneaking a look, to see exactly where they were, and saw that the two were perched next to a water tower, taking potshots at them. She tried to focus enough on the water tower itself, which was difficult due to the numerous sniper shots going around her head. The others ran interference for her, apparently knowing what she was trying to do.

Finally, after a few seconds, she was able to do it. The Keyblade wielder used her control over gravity to manipulate the molecules in the water tower, and crushed it.

Hundreds of gallons of water rushed out onto the roof and into the streets, flooding both rather quickly. The two snipers were knocked over by the sudden burst of water, and were nearly taken off the roof were it not for their swift grabbing of the rails. After a few minutes, the water settled down, and halted its movement.

It took several more minutes for the two to recover from that experience, however, they were able to stand back up and resume their normal course of action. Their recovery was placed at the right moment for them, for that was when the Hollow Devil finally arrived.

"Okay, bastards, I think it's time I teach you how not to play in the street."

Neither said a word as they raised their rifles and fired.

X Prodigy dodged quickly, and drew Sparda. He charged the closer of the two and jabbed the sword into the man's chest. At first, it went in a few inches before being halted, accompanied by a rather audible clang of metal being struck.

The Hollow Devil soon found the butt of the sniper rifle to be swung across his face, and Sparda to be torn out from the chest of his assailant. He stood up slowly and readjusted his mask before repositioning the demonic sword in front of him, angled from waist to shoulder.

The simultaneous crack of both sniper rifles echoed in the city of angels, but their shots had no fortune. Their target was gone from their immediate sight. His presence was made known again by the vertical swipe of said target's blade.

The attack had far more success than the previous, as it cleanly went through the neck, severing the head from the body. However, as X Prodigy expected blood to come gushing out in a torrent, only a few sparks arose from the severed joint.

The head rolling on the cement floor? A similar sight.

All X Prodigy could do was stare at the circuitry before his eyes. He was so sure that they were men. He had even seen the proper formation of the crotch, as most men had with tight fitting jumpsuits or clothes.

A bullet to the thigh shook him from his thoughts. He gripped Sparda tightly and charged the final assailant. The blade was swung through the rifle, splitting it in two. The remaining rounds clattered to the floor, as did the dual halves of the gun.

X Prodigy brought the blade up to the next machine's neck and swept through cleanly. The head and body did a similar routine as the predecessor did a moment ago.

The Hollow Devil sighed and activated his communicator. "Guys, they're dead. Let's get Nukes to the hospital. I'll tell you about on the way."

A burning sensation filled his leg as blood trickled down. He looked down to check the wound, but found himself lying on the ground, his eyes struggling to remain open.

Darkness took him a minute later.

* * *

**Local Hospital, Los Angeles  
1220 Hours  
Day 2**

Several hundred anti-personnel rounds flew through the hallway, tearing apart the walls and door frames. Quill quickly emptied his entire clip of ragnite rounds into both gunners. The bullets tore into them with ease, tearing their heavy armor into scrap.

However, he did not get off as easy. A few dozen rounds found themselves embedded into his side, taking out almost an entire chunk of flesh and muscle tissue. The surrounding clothing was stained dark red with blood. More of the life fluid drained down his side, creating a steady stream of red. TO say that the wound 'hurt like hell' would be considered for the 'Understatement of the Century' award.

Both were almost completely destroyed, along with the hallway. The walls were filled with rather large craters, and the floor and ceiling looked like they were about to collapse.

The tall, slender bodies of the assailants were nothing but bits and pieces of machinery, which he admitted, surprised him. However, he also knew that few ordinary people could carry a Vulcan chain gun and all of the ammunition required to operate it. So, the fact of them being robots did not particularly make him jump out of his seat, figuratively speaking.

He still did not expect machines, though. Genetically altered super soldiers, cyborgs even. But full-fledged machines were not expected.

Quill limped to a part of wall that was relatively intact and clutched his side, trying to slow down the bleeding. It failed him, as even touching the wound made it burn even more than it already was.

He glanced down the hall to witness a rather large explosion go off. The Lunar sighed before standing up and limping his way to Dawn's position. He was stopped, however, by the revving up of something behind him. It sounded frighteningly similar to the chain guns used by the machines beforehand.

He turned around to see a third machine, in the same pattern as the previous two, wielding a chain gun like the other two. The six barrels spun in a circle together before unleashing a new barrage of bullets. Quill fell to the ground to avoid them, and loaded Dragon Breaker with a pair of rounds, seeing as that was all he had time for. He fired the two shots quickly into the chest of the droid, sending it back several feet. The chain gun stopped firing as it fell from its hands and hit the floor, sounding off a large clang.

A pair of holes filled the chest of the machine, wires sparking in the openings caused by the explosive rounds. However, it was not enough to stop the droid.

The droid bent down and picked up the chain gun and revved it back up. Quill spent this time reloading Dragon Breaker to the maximum amount of rounds it could hold as a revolver. When the chain gun began revving up, the revolver let loose hell.

Six ragnite rounds tore into the droid: One in the kneecap, blowing it apart as everything below the blown off join fell to the ground. Two contacted the chest, destroying it completely. Two hit both shoulders, blasting them off. The final round struck the head, seemingly disintegrating.

Quill sighed before standing back up, using the wall as leverage. He inched his way towards Dawn's room, hopefully without any interference this time around.

Jace awoke to a stir, being carried over the shoulder of a woman. He could tell just by the appearance of her arced back, and the rather long hair with which some of it had entered his mouth while he was asleep.

Before he could tell up from down, he was thrown onto a bed- rather carelessly, he would not mind adding. Not two seconds later, an explosion sounded off in the room, and he could feel some of the shrapnel pass by his body.

The Jedi opened his eyes to see Dawn, bleeding from several places across her body by the shrapnel of the explosive, and crushed by a collapsed door resting a top of her, staring eye to eye to a camouflaged man carrying a flamethrower. The barrel was no less than three feet away from her face. He pressed the trigger and sent the flame out towards her face.

That was when he acted. He sat up and focused the Force, pushing aside the flame into the hallway. The stream of fire stopped and the man turned to face him. The voice it spoke with sent chills down his spine.

"Located: Jace Galea. Objective: Capture."

The young Jedi decided that he would not let himself be captured by whoever this person was. He sat up, thankful that he still had some pants on, though wishing for a shirt or something to cover his upper body. He glanced at his pile of clothes and used the Force to pull his lightsaber from the pile. The robes fell off the table and onto the ground, but they could be washed.

He pressed a button and the blue sword came to life, filling the room with the dull hum of the blade of energy. He charged the man and swiped his lightsaber through his shoulder. However, the instant the lightsaber made contact with the body, it deactivated itself.

Jace stepped back a few feet. "What the hell?" How could his lightsaber be turned off like that? It was not possible, at least, as far as he knew. He thought that a lightsaber was the strongest weapon in the galaxy, and could not be defeated like it just was.

Well, that was what he was taught as a youngling. Must have been more of his old masters' superiority disorders, he assumed.

The man took several steps forward and swung the end of the flamethrower at Jace's face. The Jedi was struck and fell back several more feet. He felt his jaw become dislocated.

Jace brought both hands together and pushed the attacker back several more feet. The act gave him time to try and reactivate his lightsaber. It refused to come back to life, and he was left cursing at it mentally for a moment.

The assailant recovered and walked back towards Jace, this time dropping the flamethrower on the floor. He brought his fist back and punched the Jedi in the face, following up by bringing his knee into his chest. Jace fell back from both hits, couching and leaning against the window. He glared at the man whilst coughing, but also saw what could have been his salvation.

Dawn, despite all of her injuries, was pushing the door off of her, and struggling to stand up. He saw her eyes glow amber for several seconds before she charged the man. Jace took a step out of the way as Dawn slammed the attacker through the window.

Both of them fell through, broken glass tearing into Dawn's skin as the man fell onto a car below. The roof collapsed on itself as Dawn bounced off his back and struck the pavement of the parking lot. The asphalt burnt her back and arms, from the heat of the sun warming up the black top. Several bits of rocks crawled into her wounds and made them burn even more.

Jace looked through the window at Dawn, and felt sympathy for her. He almost felt like shouting "Dawn! Are you alright?" However, he kept silent. She probably would not answer him, due to the condition she was in, and he was still trying to figure out exactly why her eyes changed from the chestnut brown he originally saw, to the amber that made him fear for his life.

The man slowly sat up, glass sticking out of his body, but otherwise unharmed. He rested his feet on the ground and walked over to Dawn. He bent over, and picked her up by the throat. Her neck was being crushed by his hand, and Jace could see the signs of her being choked. Her limbs swung out in an attempt to hit the man, to make him let her go. They all failed.

Jace jumped down to the parking lot from the window, and landed in a roll. Not one of his smarter or more graceful moves, but he did not have time for intelligence or flash.

He charged the attacker's back and punched it. Only instead of a basic punch, he focused all of the Force that he could harness into his fist and struck.

The fist broke through the suit the assailant wore and into his body, which turned out to be an 'it' instead of a 'he'. His hand tore through the armor which laid beneath, and into several wires and circuitry. His entire arm went in, and punched through the other side.

That was not to say that the experience was not painful. His entire arm spiked with pain, enough to incapacitate most people. The only thing that kept him conscious was the adrenaline coursing through his body, and what he could only describe as the desire to return the favor he owed Dawn for saving him.

Dawn was let go, dropped to the ground carelessly. Her wounds began to drain her blood on the pavement around her. The machine stopped moving, almost contemplating the fact that it had been struck such a deadly blow, before reaching around its back and grabbing Jace's face.

The machine threw Jace away and out of its back, and turned around. Jace landed against the car that was used as the landing zone for the machine a few minutes earlier. It lumbered to him slowly, several of its gears and processes corrupted and damaged by the blow dealt to it. When it finally stopped, it stood right above the Jedi.

One might have called the sight of the droid staring at Jace similar to the eyes of a predator, if the machine was alive, that was.

It brought its fist up in preparation for a punch, and Jace was too exhausted to stop it. He felt as if he would pass out right at that moment. Jace closed his eyes almost afraid of the coming strike.

The strike never came. Replacing it was a loud explosion, and heavy thud. He opened eyes to see the upper body of the machine destroyed, and the lower half lying on the ground. Jace glanced up at the window to see Hurricane's Quill, with Dragon Breaker out. He favored his steadily bleeding side and leaned against the window frame.

Jace nodded up at him and sighed. This was far too close for comfort.

* * *

**Unknown Location  
1400 Hours  
Day 2**

"Just what the hell were you thinking?" Servitus spat.

His subordinate, a young Darkside, stammered beneath his boss's rueful glare. "I…I thought you wanted th-them dead, s-s-sir…" He was smacked across the face with a strong backhand.

"No, you twit. I did not want them dead yet. They still serve a purpose to me. I specifically ordered the Jedi to be watched, not killed."

"But, I gave them orders to capture him if they met him…"

"That doesn't matter. Unless you hear say 'Go kill them' you do _nothing_. Even if you see them on the street bleeding to death, you don't finish the job. If I want them kept alive, you fucking donate every ounce of blood in your body to keep them alive."

"It won't…happen again, sir."

"Oh, I know it won't." Servitus reached beneath his desk and pulled open a drawer. Inside was a Ruger Super Redhawk revolver. He held it in his hands almost like one would a toy before sliding open the cylinder and sliding in a bullet for each open slot before sliding it closed.

"No, you won't actually do it, would you?" the young man asked, sweat pouring down his face.

"Torture you? No, even I have standards."

The young man's eyes widened as he turned around and tried to run. However, a bullet went into his kneecap and forced him to the ground. Blood splattered across the richly decorated tiled floor.

Servitus never left his seat as he looked emotionlessly at the whining body of the young man. He aimed the Ruger at the boy's head and pulled the trigger. The painful crying halted immediately.

Servitus returned the Ruger to its original place in his desk and smiled gleefully at the rest of his officers, all arrayed around a circular table.

"Let that be an example to all of you who want to move independently. Now, if you use your own resources, that's one thing. But using resources that I own and wasting them needlessly, while going against my orders is something I can't forgive. Let the boy's death be a warning: yours will be much more painful if you should happen to cross me."

All nodded, too afraid to speak up.

"Now can somebody clean up the mess before it starts stinking?"

* * *

**Okay, I hated writing the middle fight (Ranger, X, Phoenix, ect.) It was frankly a pain, and I had to take a few liberties with some powers and abilities that did not have specific stats, like range, power, ect. So, if you were less than satisfied with it, so was I. However, the Mandalorian and Dawn, Quill, Jace fight, I loved. I don't know which one I liked more.**

**Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to thank all of you who have read and/or reviewed so far for sticking with me.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Mandalorian Camp, Outskirts of Los Angeles  
1500 Hours  
Day 2**

"Fi, any progress?" Tal asked the Rodian, his arms crossed across his chest.

Fi sat at a workbench in the closest thing the ship had to a science facility: the cargo hold, seeing as the medical bay was still occupied by Silas. He never bothered to turn around and meet Tal face to face, or visor to visor.

"Well, after scavenging the very few remains of the droid -be sure to thank Six-Six for that- I was able to make a blueprint for the droid, It isn't complete, and it probably doesn't have every little gear and wire in there, but it's close." The Rodian tossed a small datapad to Tal, who pressed a button on the corner and on the screen flased up a schematic of the exact same droid he had fought before, only in extensive detail down to the very last atom of each element used.

At least, of those he could find.

For the most part, the machine was made out of durasteel, a metal that, by itself is around three thousand times more durable than regular steel, and is often used for starship hull. Double it, and the machien is nigh invulnerable to small arms fire. Spread throughout the body of the automaton was a mineral called phrik. A pinkish substance that deactivates any lightsaber it comes in direct physical contact with. However, it was offset by its incredibly brittle nature. So, it was placed it sparse amounts throughout the frame, mixed with durasteel to keep both the sturdiness of the armor, and the ability to make fighting Jedi much easier.

"Whoever made those droids must have quite a lot of coin on hand. Not to mention those droids were probably designed to hunt Jedi."

However, one thing bugged Tal: there was no mention of the fabric that covered the droid in forrest camoflauge. His blade had went through it easily enough, but he stilll needed to know if it was important enough to worry about.

"But what was the outer material? My knife went through it fairly well."

"Armorweave. Slightly protective against enviromental hazards, but practically useless against most weapons, it's purely decorative. Only reason anyone would use it really is to cover the joints and to allow for easy movement, but it won't protect against blasters, blades worth their weight in spice, or anything that's a real weapon. Like I said, purely decorative.

"I didn't bother putting in there because, armorweave is pretty much useless, and it would have only went on the joints, if my guess is right. I could have either went into detail on the material that's flexible but offers virtually no protection, which everyone knows, or just tell you to hack'em at the moving parts. I cheated and went with the latter." Tal could not help but crack a smile at this. He admitted it was rather...out of character for Fi to 'cheat', but when it was at something that would have been useless and a waste of time, he could not blame him.

The sound of footsteps behind Tal alerted him to another person's presence, but he was too caught up in the very impressive designs that Fi had made. Tal made a mental note to beat the living _osik_ out of anyone who called Fi a nerd.

The sound of someone clearing their throat finally forced Tal out of his awe. "Droid talk. Wonderful."

Tal turned around to see Kom'rk standing in the doorway, his helmet off, the graying hair of the aged Mandalorian had been soaked after he had washed, to clean off the sweat from the battle a few hours ago. He was getting old, but Kom'rk was too proud to admit it. I may be old, but I can still kick your _shebs_, he would say.

"Is there something you need, Kom'rk?"

"Yeah, if you're not too busy right now."

"I was just finishing up. Speak up."

"Thanks. Some of our listening devices got word of two attacks in the city. They were both by droids of similar descriptions as the one who attacked us out there, apparently. One on a street in downtown, and another at a hospital. Both were heavily damaged from the battle, at least a hundred civilian casualties combined. There's one thing the two have in common, though."

"And that would be…?" Did he have to make it sound dramatic? Kom'rk knew Tal hated that kind of _osik_. Either quit bullshitting or get out, that was one of his policies.

"Author Fighters." The old man should have kept up his bullshitting.

"_Shab_…"

"If we're under attack by the same person-this Servitus, probably- it may be in our best interest to coordinate with them."

"No, they've already proved themselves a threat. As far as I'm concerned, we're still at war with them."

"We can develop a truce with them, at least temporarily. No one has to work together, just stay out of each other's way. Besides, we may get some info that we don't already have on the droids, or Servitus himself."

"What part 'we're still at war with them', didn't you understand?"

"Men in power have had to do things they never liked, Tal. If they have information that we can use, we can't turn it down," Kom'rk said.

"Why not just take it from them?"

"That might just prove too costly in the end. After seeing what they did to Commander Vel, I'm all for nuking this _shabla_ city- hell, this _shabla_ planet- but the public reaction might cause us to lose contracts, credits, and unnecessary men in a needless firefight. And truthfully, what honor is in that?"

Tal sighed. He hated it when his subordinates made a good point. He knew just how much the public loved those teenagers for reasons he had yet to decipher. If word got out that he and his men slaughtered them all, there was a good chance the public would attack them. While he was sure that one Mandalorian was worth a hundred of these soft Earth civilians, he was worried about the governments of this Earth, and of allied factions.

This planet, they could take. Costly, yes, but there was a good chance they could take Earth down. If he had to deal with the countless allies of both the Author Fighters and of the Earth, they would be destroyed, and all the work he had done would have been for nothing.

So, Tal succubed, to an extent.

"I'll think about it. How are the men?"

"They've all been packed into caskets. Once we get a transport down here, we'll send them up to the _Indomitable_ where they can get a proper funeral. Captain Fordo will arrange it for us, so you don't need to worry about them, Tal."

"The ones still alive, I meant."

"Sorry about that. Despite the casualties-nineteen to be exact- morale is still good. They're ready to take some revenge for our fallen brethren, and to do so with a bang."

"They'll need that fighting spirit, I can already tell."

"Right. Defensive positions have already been set up: trenches, building makeshift forts with trees, and some traps have been set up. I won't go into details, but watch out for stray rope."

"Distance?"

"Everything in a fifty foot radius of the camp is safe, with everything within a hundred feet of that perimeter is trapped."

"So, we'll know if we have any company long before they get here. However, I want thermal and motion sensors put up as well. You avoid trip wire. You can't avoid motion or thermal sensors."

Kom'rk nodded once again. "We'll get right on it, sir."

"Good. Am I to assume that you're in charge of the traps?"

"Negative, sir. Six-Six oversaw it." Six-Six. Tal could easily see him taking over if something happened to him or Silas.

"That boy deserves a _shabla_ medal. Now, how is Captain Vel doing?"

"Most likely, she'll be out of her tank by tomorrow morning. Don't worry, sir, you'll be the first person she sees. I'll make sure of that."

"Thank you, Kom'rk. Dismissed."

Kom'rk snapped off a quick salute and left the hold rather quickly. Tal turned back to Fi.

"Now, back to the droids. We can't keep using our grenades against these droids, especially if we're dealing if an army of them."

"The only thing I can say is to go after their joints. Tear them apart from those points, and they won't be a threat. But, these could be the mass-produced models and there are most likely more advanced models out there. Better armored, better equipped, better at killing. I'm just going off on a hunch and logic, though. But, chances are I'm right."

"Alright, so aim for the joints. Got it. Spread the word."

"Remember, I'm only hypothesizing."

"Right. I'll also make sure to tell them that if the joints don't break and if they get killed, to haunt you." Anyone with a brain could tell that Tal was smirking behind his helmet. Fi obviously didn't get the joke, though.

"It's just guessing, sir. Not my fault if they can't rework their plan if that one fails."

Tal grunted and turned around. He took a pair of steps toward the door and keyed the exit code in. The door slid open for him a moment before he stepped through. He walked down the ramp to see several of the Mandalorians camped behind the makeshift guard positions. Some were sitting in small trenches, while others rested against stacked up logs. In all, there were about five trenches of twenty feet around the shuttle, and thirty log walls, fifteen feet in height, and ten in width. The logs were tied together with rope to hold it all together.

Several of the men who passed him gave him polite nods and informal two-finger salutes. In all, out of the seventy men who had flown down to meet Tal and his squad, fifty-one were left alive from the fight. It was not the best start one would hope for, but Tal was determined to make do with it.

Even though he had the authority to pull the entire company to Earth for his mission, he did not believe that it would be needed. Not to mention it would be a gross misuse of power, considering that the rest of the company-a few thousand men at the most, and growing by the day- had to perform other contracts for other clients.

The one who he wanted to see finally crossed his path.

"Six-Six!"

The clone snapped off a salute. "Yes sir?"

"Ease, son. I just need to ask something of you."

Six-Six nodded and brought his hand back down to his waist and visibly relaxed. His helmet was still on, a habit from time in the Grand Army, and still on edge on from earlier. No one was taking any chances it seemed. Good.

"Six-Six, I'm going to get straight to the point. Keep control of everything here for a few hours. I'll be heading out for a while, doing some recon."

"Wait, you're putting me in charge?"

"You were second-in-command of Bravo Squad, correct?"

"Yes, sir, but-"

"That's all I need to hear. Kom'rk's a good soldier, but he doesn't have much leadership experience, despite his age. But he'll be a good advisor for the time being. Fi's just a tech, and Silas is incapacitated. You have the most leadership experience out of the remaining squad."

The squad of Tal, Silas, Six-Six, Kom'rk, and Fi had been together since the Clone Wars ended. They all trusted each other, knew their strengths and weaknesses, and could cover and rely on each of those bases. They were the original _Cuy'val Darasuum_, before anyone else. And after years of being in business, he still had not thought of a name suitable for them. But names were nil important on the battlefield, so it was best he not worry on it too much.

"But, I'm sure there's someone in the new soldiers that can do better than me."

"Already ran background checks. A few have the experience needed, but I don't know them as well as I do you. I don't trust them as well as I do you." In the end, that's what it came down to: trust.

"Why not have someone else do recon for you? It'd be better than leaving us without a proper commander." Six-Six was using his brain. Tal expected no less from one of his batch of boys.

"It's just something I have to do myself. If anything goes wrong, just call me and I'll get back as fast as possible."

Six-Six sighed before nodding. "I probably shouldn't ask why, you'll just give me some cryptic answer like that anyway." Six-Six dared not say it, but he thought Tal was acting a lot like one of those kriffing Jedi Masters.

"Most likely."

"Go on then, sir. I can handle it. Still, mind giving the announcement so I won't have to deal with the awkwardness of it?"

Tal gave an audible chuckle and patted Six-Six's shoulder twice. "I love ya, son, but you're on your own for that one."

"Sir, permission to speak freely?"

"You don't have to ask me that, son. Speak away."

"You suck."

The two shared another laugh for several moments. Soon after, Tal left the camp to go into the city. He planned on doing exactly what he said he would do: recon. He would try to find the corpses of those droids that the Author Fighters had defeated, and he planned on bringing them back to Fi for further study. That extra little bit of info might help them find a weakness in those droids, and make killing them a lot easier.

And if any of the Author Fighters interfered, he would make sure to kill them. They would not escape like they did before.

* * *

**Abandoned Hospital, Los Angeles  
1520 Hours  
Day 2**

Laid across the surprisingly intact beds of the now desolate hospital were the unconscious bodies of Nukid, X Prodigy, Mistress of Dawn, Hurricane's Quill, and Jace Galea. The injuries of all five of them were great enough that bed rest was an almost requirement.

While X Prodigy's injuries only consisted of a single bullet wound, nothing too bad that in itself, the bullet was found to be coated in a currently unknown toxin, and he had collapsed of heat exhaustion soon after being shot, much like Nukid had at the beginning of their skirmish.

Dawn and Quill suffered from severe blood loss, Quill more so. However, what some might suggest as fate's sick attempt to balance the scales, Dawn had suffered far more grievous injuries from the shrapnel, to the door, to being thrown out of a window.

Jace, while his injuries in themselves were not that bad, was still recovering from his recent collapse and head trauma, and the battle a few short hours ago did nothing to alleviate the pain or hasten in the recovery process.

After the attack, everyone had abandoned the hospital, civilians anyway. Phoenix had attempted to convince some of the doctors or nurses to stay behind and help the wounded, but none chose to. Some blamed it on fear of another attack, while others began to detest the Author Fighters for bringing the attackers there and causing all of the innocent deaths, many of which had family among the deceased. If a man's wife and children were killed because the Author Fighters decided to stay at the same hospital as them, chances are, they would hold a grudge, no?

The Author Fighters and their 'guests' had opted to use it as temporary refuge. It had all of the medical supplies they would need, and would most likely be sterile enough for the injured. Airnaruto had gone off, gathering the proper tools and resources needed to keep them alive and combat whatever infection they may get. Phoenix, after being cursed out by many angry family members, did her best to find out what the toxin was that had entered the bloodstream of Nukid and X Prodigy.

Ranger was doing something far more enjoyable with the other guest of the Author Fighters, one Joseph Crane.

"I don't think you told us everything." Another slap across the face caused the skin of Crane's face to become raw. He was obviously a weak man, as he neared a mental breakdown after just a couple of slaps by Ranger. Though, Ranger also had a strong punch, so that may also have been cause of the drug dealer's near-breakdown.

"I told you everything I know! My boss's name is Servitus! He's a Darkside! He runs the L.A. underground! That's all I fucking know!"

"You gotta know more than that. Doesn't even have to be about Servitus."

"…I'm a virgin." A bullet shot tore into his foot. He cried out in pain as Ranger backed away slowly.

"Not what I meant…"

"Then...what am I...supposed to say?" His breathing was ragged, and he was struggling to even speak at the moment. It was doubtful he would even be able to walk for a few hours.

"I'll give you one. Who's your supplier?"

"My what?" Another slap across the face was the result of answering a question with another, far more idiotic, question.

"Your 'supplier'. Who gives you the drugs that you sell to litle kids? Do they give you any candy as a side package?"

"Oh…A small-time gang. Their under Servitus's thumb and run a sort of trading business with some friends in Columbia, mostly. A few in-staters though, but mostly beaners." Of course he had to use the racial slur for Mexicans.

"Where exactly do they live?" One could easily tell that Ranger was getting upset at the constant need to ask unnecessary questions. Another stupid remark or stupid question by this guy, and the Twilight Warrior would surely go medieval on his ass.

"By the beach. Rather desolate too. Have their own shack and dock and everything. Easy for unregistered ships to dock and drop off their load."

"You are going to take us there when we are good and ready to go, regardless of whether you are."

"And you're going to make me?" Crane grew back the balls that Nukid probably broke, along with his spine. The exact reason behind this sudden recovery of his nuts was unknown, but what was known was this: it was a _very_ bad move.

Ranger kicked Crane into the wall and shoved the barrel of his Desert Eagle in the middle of the cocaine dealer's forehead. The pressure of the barrel forced his head back even further, and would soon cause a bruise.

"You are going to listen to me very carefully. Either you do as I say, or I am going to rip off that cock of yours, shove it down your throat, and make sure that you very well choke on your own dick. How would you like that, Mr. Tough-Guy? Or, do you even have a dick, and then it would be Ms. Tough-Girl? In which case, I'll just shove my boot knife up in there a couple of dozen times. How about that?"

To say the least, Joseph Crane had most likely pissed and shitted himself, while on the verge of tears from the ever growing pressure of the magnum's barrel against his head and of the intense fear he remembered he had for this man.

In short, he nodded like hell.

"Now, when I give you the order to, you are going to lead us right to those friends of yours' little house, and you are going to get us inside, and you are going to help us extract every little piece of information from them as you possibly can. And if I suspect any, _any_ foul play from you, I will make sure to make good on my promise, only a hundred times worse. Understand?"

Once again, he nodded like hell.

"Good. Now just sit here like a good boy until I tell you otherwise.

The Twilight Warrior turned around and left before Crane could give an answer. He walked across the hall into the room which contained his allies. Phoenix sat in the corner, looking up several different toxins via a laptop.

"Any progress?"

She shook her head. "Zip."

Ranger glanced at the two Brits. Despite what he would have had many know, he was worried for them. However, he would not fawn over the two like an overbearing mother, but he also would not just cast them aside like a soulless monster would. He exercised his worries another way: by torturing, or what many would rather have him say interrogating, their guest. But he had received sufficient information at the moment, so future sessions would wait.

And them the fun would begin anew.

As for Nukid and X Prodigy, the two, physically, were fine. Their breathing was normal, heart rate (from what Phoenix could tell by holding her hand to their wrists) was fine, and almost nothing was out of the ordinary.

Yet they refused to awake. They seemed almost in like a trance of sorts, a medative state in their sleep. The exact cause of it was undoubtedly the poison, but they had no way of knowing what it was, or its properties.

Phoenix's job was to try and find out what was used in their poison. Ever since gaining access to a computer, she searched nonstop for it, looking up on all kinds of toxins that caused similar states as Nukid and X Prodigy were in. Despite her efforts, there was no luck, and she was sure that the computer had picked up at least a virus or two on her extensive search.

Another thing that perplexed them was why the droids that had attacked the hospital lacked poison on their bullets. A possible reason, she suspected, was that while the chain guns would kill everything in its range with just holding down a button and throwing the gun around randomly, a sniper rifle required precision, accuracy, skill. As such, perhaps the Sniper Droids (as she had began to call that variation) were not intended to _kill_ their targets, but inflict poison upon them, while the Gunner Droids (again, her own nickname) were designed to go into a heavily populated area, and kill everything.

But if that was true, why would you want to poison someone you did not wish to be killed?

The answers top many of these questions would not come to any of them for many hours, each minute of which felt like an eternity to them. And as the questions lay unanswered, the supposed traitor to the World Government, and Hollow who had embraced the powers of a devil, laid in the lake of lethal uncertainty.

**

* * *

**

Los Angeles Downtown  
1302 Hours  
Day 2

"Mommy? Mommy, are you alright?"

The small child crawled out from the overturned car into the corpse filled street. Police or cleanup crews had yet to arrive, it seemed, as fires were still burning, corpses lay rotting, and blood stained the already filthy street. The child had some slight trouble making his way out of the car, as the glass was broken for the most part, but the edges were sharp, and mistake would easily tear a hole into an arm or a leg. Or his throat.

After spending several minutes keeping himself up away from the glass and inching out of the upside-down Volkswagen, the one his grandfather had apparently given to his mother when he was unable to drive, he slid onto the concrete street, but not before getting a gash on his right forearm from the glass. He tried not to cry from the deep cut, because he was a big boy, and mommy had said big boys don't cry.

He was no longer a big boy, as for a child barely old enough to do basic addition and subtraction and not used to pain, a cut that went in at least a few inches and took up half of his arm, would be enough for him to bawl like he did when his mother had neglected to give him enough milk.

After what seemed to be hours for him- though it was only ten minutes- he stopped his crying. Blood still dripped from the wound, but he held his hand to it, trying to numb the pain and act as if his hand was a bandage. The actual effectiveness of either attempt was up to debate, but it seemed to work for him.

He stumbled to his feet, sniffling back a few tears of his previous weep, and walked along the street, searching for his mother. The child continually called out to her, but only silence and the occasional breeze answered him. He could barely pick out who was who for all of the mutilated bodies strewn about in the street, let alone find his own mother. Or whatever was left of her that was.

The two had been merely returning home from a trip to the hospital, where Grandpa John lived. He was never feeling too good whenever he had visitors, but always tried to keep people from seeing just how much pain he was really in. The child also remembered seeing a few of the Author Fighters in that hospital, like the ones he saw on TV, but when he asked if he could go say hi, Mommy had said that they were busy. He put no more thought to it.

When they were discussing plans for a late lunch. That was when the chaos began.

Sniper shots filled the street, and Mother had jerked to the side of the road, just in time for a bullet to hit the wheel and send it spiraling into the nearby building, ignoring any and all commands she had given it via the wheel. An elderly couple was caught in the way between the nearby building, and her car. They were crushed, their old bones cracking under the intense pressure and force.

They hid inside the car for several minutes as the screams died down, but the shots continued to ring out. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they stopped. One would have been relived, if they had not known what it was replaced with.

A large blast of energy sent their 'Bug flying into the air, and while the child was stuck to his seat by both his seatbelt, and his mother holding him down with her own body, she was soon flung out the window, causing the broken glass that had cut him earlier.

The child had been unconscious after that.

To him, it seemed like a bad dream that he would wake up from, and mommy would just walk in and kiss and hug the monsters away. But, deep down, even in his developing mind that still believed that the knight in shining armor would always save the day at no cost to him, or the beautiful princess he rescued, the child _knew_ that this was no dream that he could wake up from. He _knew_ that Mommy could not make the monsters go away just by kissing him and holding him tight to her bosom, like she did when he was but a newborn so he could suck the milk from her teat like all infants at that time.

He _knew_ that the chances of finding her alive were slim to none.

He moved slow, careful to avoid the bodies of people he did not recognize as his mother, and only approached the ones who looked like they could be her, but none did. Despite his young age, he had good memory for faces. Names were a different though, for they went in one ear and out the other, but he could remember someone's face and could tell apart in a crowd.

For hours, he searched. Several times, he found himself going in circles, as the entire street blurred together, and he could not tell where he had been before, and where he had not. Finally, he found her.

Her stiff body laid in an alley, far from the car they had abandoned, carefully propped up against the wall. Dried blood stained her face, and even he had trouble telling her apart, but he did. And he wept once more.

The child crawled up against her chest, nestling his head against it, and pulling her arm around himself. He cried into her very cold neck, and every now and then, kissed her on either cheek, hoping that the kiss of one who loved her would bring her back from her sleep. It did not.

He remained like that for another hour, not moving, except to try to make her more comfortable, since she was unable to do so. He did this until a shadow fell upon both him and his mother's corpse, but it was not until it spoke in a raspy voice did he notice.

"Do ye want yer mommy back, son?" it spoke, in an almost Southern accent. It took him a few minutes to understand what the shadow had said, not being familiar with the accent itself. When he finally understood, the boy merely nodded his head, still cuddled up against his mother's breasts like an baby.

"I can bring her back to ye, if ye want me to. Do ye?" The boy almost jumped out of his mother's arms at that prospect, but still remained in them. However, he did turn around to face the man, who looked almost like a different number of people all at once. It could have been sworn that the boy and the shadow had met before, many times, actually, under different aliases. But the boy was just: a boy, and had no real cause to think it strange.

However, the face he seemed to take was that of a man with a fair complexion, with glowing green eyes that stared into one's soul, a slightly angular nose, and a wide grin that could feel both warming, and frightening, at the same time. His high forehead had a few bangs of red hair sticking out from underneath the hood of his hood. Said hood, along with the cloak he wore, was pitch black, with no pattern design, no additional colors. Just black.

"Please, tell me what to do!" Despite suffering fully traumatic experiences that would have scarred most adults, he seemed to be in high spirits, only at the possibility of having his mother kiss him once more on his round nose, look into his dark brown eyes, shuffle his black hair-

"Settle down, child, and I will." And so he did. The shadowy man told the child of his instructions, all the while grinning his grin that both welcomed, and drove away those who met it.

If the Mandalorian woman by the name of Silas Vel had been there, and had remembered her dream, then she would have been able to recognize several similarities between both this shadow, and the one who spoke to her of her own weakness.

**

* * *

**

Okay, so, after all this time, I think I finally moved on with the story. Yay!

So, for the shadow man, I kind of made him using inspiration from the G-Man of Half-Life, and Walter, the man in black, of The Dark Tower. So, here's hoping he gets positive reviews from everyone!

**Anyway, review if you have any comments, criticisms, etc. Hope you enjoyed.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Downtown Los Angeles, Abandoned Hospital  
1725 Hours  
Day 2**

A throbbing pain spiked through Jace's head, awakening him from his sleep. Much like his previous emergence from slumber, it left with him feeling like shit. Only this was more so than before. And the fact that there was also four other people laying next two him in beds, in far worse shape than he was, from what he could tell by looking at them. While he could have just sensed it with the Force, his incredibly powerful headache made it difficult to concentrate enough to that.

"Hey, the Jedi's awake," he heard a voice say. The Padawan was still too tired to know who it was, but he knew it was a man's voice.

The clap of two feet hitting the ground met him next, followed by a group of footsteps. His still blurry vision was met with green eyes and long brown hair. _Phoenix, if I remember right_. Her hair tilted over her left shoulder, of which she soon corrected. For some reason, the young Jedi felt a want to push it back for her. Why? He had no idea.

"You okay, Jace?" Phoenix asked. Jace pushed his body up to a sitting position to meet her at a more equal stance. His vision had cleared up by now, and he could see where he heard the voice from before come from. It was Ranger, his arms crossed with a very neutral look across his face, but Jace could have sworn he saw relief in that face. Comfort perhaps. Or maybe it was just a fabrication of the mind, it mattered not.

"I'm not dead. That's one thing. What happened to these guys?" His mind was still a blur of what had occurred a few hours before then. He recalled gunshots, explosions, a few screams…and amber eyes. Those eyes were the last things that he remembered.

Phoenix glanced at her bed ridden friends. "You don't remember?"

"Bits and pieces, but not enough to make sense of it."

The Keyblade wielder sighed. "We were attacked. All of us. By some kind of assassin droids. I don't know the specifics of what happened here, but you, Quill, and Dawn were hurt pretty badly. Dawn had a lot of shrapnel in her, along some broken glass. Quill was full of bullets, and had lost a lot of blood." She stopped for a moment, as if she was just getting to the bad part.

"And the other two?"

Phoenix bit her lip, but before she could speak, Ranger spoke up. "They've both been poisoned. We have no idea with what. As far as we know, they could die in the next ten seconds, or the next month."

Both Jace and Phoenix were a bit shocked by his bluntness, but at least he got the bad news out quick and relatively painless. Ranger's eyes had a cold, almost fearful look. It did not mean that Ranger looked afraid, far from it. It instead made Jace afraid. Afraid of what Ranger would do to whoever caused all of this. Despite his hard exterior, Jace knew that if you hurt Ranger's friends and comrades, he would be more frightening than the Devil himself.

"Can I see them?" Jace asked. It was a rather out-there question, even he knew that, but it was his hope that maybe he could find some way to at least relieve Nukid and X Prodigy's poisoning with the Force. However, there was not much he could do, because he had little to no training with healing, but he had to at least give it a shot.

Phoenix turned to look at Ranger, and both nodded. "If you feel up to it," she said.

Jace tried to get out of bed, but a severe pain in his chest kept him down. Phoenix put an arm around his shoulders and helped him up. He felt his heart hasten a bit, but he pushed that to the side as an effect of the pain he felt. She walked him over to Nukid's bed, while Ranger pulled a chair over for him to sit in.

Jace stumbled into the chair, and looked Nukid over. He placed his hands at the assassin's chest and closed his eyes. He cut himself off from everything else in the room, and focused only on Nukid and that poison. His mind melted into Nukid's essence: his mind, body, and soul. He had hoped that it would lead him to discover the true nature of what was in his system.

A small dose of discomfort came to his skull. Whether it was his own inexperience or something within Nukid was not known, but Jace assumed the former. After a few moments of careful inspection, he found something. It was like a hole, one in the Author Fighter's soul. It was a strange comparison, but that was the only thing he could think of that would suffice to explain it. Everything seemed dark to Jace when he stumbled upon it, but he believed that he needed to go deeper.

_By the Force, I hope I'm doing this right._

Into the hole he went, and his entire being felt enveloped in darkness. Even though he had been raised on the belief that the dark was evil, that it was to be avoided at all costs, it felt slightly comforting to him. How and why were questions he asked himself, but he neglected the curiousness of his own mind and tried to find the source.

Doubt plagued his mind. If he was supposed to heal this man, why go into his soul? Because some part of him-instinct, perhaps- believed that the truth would be found within it. It made no sense to Jace, and he doubted that there would be any sense made for the rest of his days, but he pressed on nonetheless.

After what seemed like hours (which was only moments in actuality) within Nukid's soul and the darkness plaguing it, Jace finally found a light. With all his strength, the Jedi pushed himself into the light, and dragged it out.

Jace's eyes flew open and he looked around the room with increasing paranoia. His heart felt as if it would pop out of his chest. He could not register his surroundings, and could only hear mumbles in the background. After a few minutes, they made sense to him.

A mane of long brown hair- _Phoenix_- had covered the body of Nukid, with several muffled protests coming from him. Several chuckles of laughter came from Ranger across the room, who would give his welcome after the young girl finished her hug of death.

"Gah! Phoenix! I need to breathe!" Nukid finally managed to yell. Phoenix got off of him sheepishly.

"Hehe… Sorry Nukes." Despite her obvious embarrassment, she still had what Jace could have sworn was the largest smile he had seen in his life.

Nukid rubbed the back of his head. "Don't worry about it."

"Glad to have you back, Nukid," Ranger said.

"Glad to be back, Ranger. How much did I miss?" Nukid asked. He took a glance around the room, and answered his own question. "Oh…"

"Yeah."

Jace stood back and just watched the interaction between these friends. He knew when he was not welcome, even if they would have allowed him in. His eyes shifted over to X Prodigy, and knew he would have to start on him soon.

Ranger saw his eyes and gave him a quick nod. "Get to it, Jedi." Despite what some would have called hostility, Jace heard a sense of accepting in that voice. It comforted him slightly.

Jace went through a similar experience with X Prodigy, with very little different. Except for the fact that he knew what to do, and felt more confident in himself. Despite that, his uneasiness with the excessive amount of darkness he felt in the Hollow Devil, much like that in Nukid did not go away.

X received much the same treatment as Nukid did. Phoenix practically glomped him, overjoyed to see him alive.

"Missed me that much, did ya?" X asked, smiling behind his Hollow mask. He patted Phoenix on the top of her head, ruffling her hair a bit.

The two were soon filled in on what all had happened while they were out. Nukid and X both gave each other looks of worry. While X had fought those droids, he did not have time to wonder where they came from, or who sent them, or why they were there. Now these questions stained his mind. Nukid shared his curiosity, but had even less information because he had no first-hand experience with them, like the others did.

"So do we know when Dawn and Quill are going to wake up?" X asked, sitting up from his bed.

"We really don't know. It'll be a while, probably, but they'll get up eventually. At least it's not as bad as you guys were," Ranger said.

"Hey Jace. Think you could work on them like you did with us?" Nukid said.

"I could try, but no guarantee that I'll have the same results." Jace felt an urge to tell them about what he felt when he went into their souls, but decided against it. It was probably tied to their own history, and they would think he read their minds, or peeked into their memories without their permission. What he did not need was them distrusting him, especially when he- the person who started out blatantly hating them, was beginning to trust them himself.

"Well, if you can, would you mind?"

"I suppose, but I just need a few minutes. Reviving people isn't filled with rainbows and unicorns, y'know." Despite his attempt at humor, no one really laughed. He thought he heard a cough, maybe a cricket, but there was no sign of either in the room. Jace just muttered a "sorry" and rubbed his neck in embarrassment.

"Well, do it whenever you're ready," Nukid said.

The Jedi nodded and walked back into the corner, preferring to keep his mouth shut for a while.

"Anyway," Ranger began. "I asked our guest a few questions, and we have a lead. A dock for smuggling in goods from South America. It's where he gets his shipments. As soon as those two wake up, we'll hit it."

"Wait, who are you talking about?" X asked. He had not realized they had taken the drug dealer, Joseph Crane, prisoner. How could he? He had been unconscious for that entire time.

"Nukid's friend. The guy he went to talk to before those machines showed up."

"How did you find that out?" Nukid asked.

Ranger just gave a small smirk. "He does not take pain too well, let's leave it at that." And they did.

**Downtown Los Angeles  
1430 Hours  
Day 2**

The wreckage was worse than what Tal had expected. Bodies littered the street, cars and buildings were decimated. And there was so much blood. He was used to blood, he was used to corpses, but most of these were people who did not need to be in the battle. They were civilians, killed because they got in the way of whomever or whatever was the cause of this.

But what hurt him most of all was the children. There were as many, if not more bodies of children who had not even hit puberty, than of the adults who may or may not have created and raised them. Tal could handle bodies, but children? That was one thing he could not handle.

The Mandalorian walked down the street, watching and mentally recording everything he saw. With luck, it would give him some idea of who had done this, or what their capabilities were. Bullets seemed to be the primary cause of death, but it did not account for the massive amount of damage done to the street, cars, and buildings. Sure, there was the bullet in the tire, or through the windshield, he could tell that. Blood in the driver and passenger seat, and skid marks on the road told him that already. But for the most part, small arms fire could not have torn entire sections out from the sides of buildings, or overturned cars. And some of the bodies looked as if they had been struck by some kind of blast of energy.

Just who the hell had done all of this?

Tal was torn from his questions by something striking his helmet. A dull _thud_ came from the hit, followed by a few more as whatever had hit him fell to the ground. He looked down to see a rather large rock lying next to his foot. Another rock struck him harmlessly in the chest.

Tal looked up and saw a small boy, holding a third rock in his hands, glaring at Tal. Something was in those eyes, something that reminded Tal of Jango Fett and his clones. They reminded him too much.

"Stay away from us," he said, his voice still slightly high pitched. He had not hit puberty yet, so he was obviously young. But who was he talking about when he said 'us'? It was just them- no one else.

"Calm down kid. Don't do anything you might regret." The rock was thrown, but Tal caught it with his free hand effortlessly. The child may have had the eyes of a warrior, but he had the skill of a drunken moisture farmer.

"Just stay away from her!" _Her. Who is he talking about? Everyone else is dead. _

"I'm not going to do anything, kid. Just calm down."

Tal could not understand what all came out of the child's mouth after that. It was a mixture of sobs, screams, and what he assumed to be threats. Despite being so young, he apparently possessed quite the…colorful vocabulary.

It took several minutes for the child to stop yelling, and he settled with a puffed up face, colored the brightest shade of red Tal had ever seen, with a few tears staining his face.

"You done now?" Even the Mandalorian himself was amazed at his insincerity.

The child nodded, wiping his eyes off with the sleeve of his T-shirt. "You're a jerk…"

"Thanks for statin' the obvious, kid. Now, you going to explain to me what happened, or are you going to start crying again?"

The boy looked up at Tal, an obvious look of contempt toward the mercenary. "…I guess so."

Tal nodded and walked over to him, kneeling down next to the boy. "Good. Now, what's your name?"

"…William."

"Alright William. My name is Tal." He extended his armored hand out to him. William hesitantly and grudgingly accepted it. His hand was so small compared to Tal's. It reminded the grizzled Mandalorian that not everyone was like him: not everyone had the capacity to kill at a young age, like he did. It was a reality check for him.

William then went on to explain everything that had happened to him: the crash, the fighting, and finding his mother dead. He oh so cleverly left out the bit about the man in black, but Tal was none the wiser.

"And just how old are you?"

"I'm eight. Nine in a few weeks." Eight. _Eight_. _Eight years old_. That was the same exact age Tal lost his biological father to the Death Watch. This had to be coincidence. It had to be.

_No, it's not. This happened for a reason. Even you know that, Mr. I-Don't-Believe-In-Anything. Deep down, you know._

He did know. As far as Tal knew, this boy was alone. His mother was dead, from what he described of his grandfather, the old man was likely dead as well (few make contact with the Author Fighters and come out unscathed, Tal had led himself to believe), and he most likely did not have any other family.

"Don't you have a father, William?"

"Mom doesn't talk about him." That explained enough of the story for Tal to make his decision.

"Listen, I know you don't trust me, but I'm all you got right now. I can give you a place to stay, somewhere warm, with food, and with people who will treat you right."

"What's the catch?" This kid was sharp, despite his age. Tal made a mental note to train him as a warrior once the current mission was done. He would make a damn good Mandalorian.

"No catch. What do you say, William? Willing to trust this jerk?"

William looked down at the ground for several minutes before finally looking up at Tal. "Can I bring her with me?" The corpse of his mother. William was certainly set on that thing.

"It'll be a hassle, but I think I can manage," Tal said. It would be more than a hassle. Carrying an adult sized corpse, along with a child, would be extremely difficult single handed. Dangerous even. But Tal would figure it out. He was a Mandalorian.

Somewhere far off, a hooded man, covered in an all black robe, cackled madly. All was going according to his master's plan.

* * *

**Okay, definately a short chapter. More of a linking chapter than a really important one. Wasn't that exciting to write, and not really enjoyable to read, I bet. Too short, not enough going on, just a kind of 'meh' chapter. I couldn't find anyway to lengthen it without trying tack on stuff that wouldn't really fit, or seem believable. **

**I would not be surprised if you guys avoided this one. I would.**


	11. Chapter 11

**An update finally, so you all can rest assured I'm not dead! Longest update so far, about thirteen pages in Word, so I understand if a few people get turned off by it. But hopefully it'll be worth the wait, and if not, well it comes to be expected every now and then.**

**

* * *

**

Los Angeles, Abandoned Hospital  
2315 Hours  
Day 2

Joseph Crane was tired. He was _exhausted_. For several hours- just how many had it been? - He had been tied to this goddamned chair, beaten, insulted, and tortured. All by that green wearing son of a bitch. Ranger was his name. The others paid him no mind. They did not give a shit about some drug dealer. He's just doing his damn job, making a living, not getting himself killed! What was so wrong about that?

Besides, he was starting to go out of business anyway; those stupid prescription drugs were taking all his business away. Crane laughed to himself. He was probably out of business right now anyway. Who would have wanted to deal with someone who had been captured by the Fanfiction Author Fuckers? He would just rat them out, after all. His contacts would dry up, and he would not have anyone left to sell to.

But Joseph Crane would just be happy if he got out of this situation alive. To hell if his business went under, all he cared about was seeing the next sunrise.

He heard the door click as the motherfucker walked back in. "Had a good rest?" Ranger asked, cracking his neck. Despite the darkness in the room, Crane could see the smirk under that cloak. It haunted him.

"I hope you did, because it's time for you to lead us to your little friends."

Crane nodded. He wondered what his face looked like. It felt that it was the most bloated thing ever, but without a mirror, he had no idea of knowing. He did know his left eye was halfway shut, and felt swollen because of all of the abuse.

The ropes were cut, allowing blood circulation to once again go into his hands and feet easily, without having to squeeze their way through constricted arteries. His limbs were numb from lack of movement, and it took him a few minutes to get feeling back.

"Come on," Ranger said, pushing him through the door. The other Author Fuckers were waiting for them, including the ones who were unconscious when he first got there. Three of them widened their eyes when they saw Crane- the two Author whores and the kid in the robes. He was sure they saw worse stuff, but maybe they were just amazed at what their friend did to him.

Crane did not care. Did they try to help him, even after hearing his cries of pain and his ignored pleas of mercy? No, they did not give a rat's ass about it. Several thoughts of brutally killing them all came to his head. Of taking these two bitches as his own, until they were unable to get him off anymore, and then they would end up dead like their friends. All because they let him be tortured like that.

He quickly banished those thoughts. How could he, a beaten drug dealer who could barely run for five minutes without losing his breath, kill all of these super powered freaks? He could not, and he knew that.

A look from the blonde headed kid- he gave off the aura of a pompous Brit, to Crane anyway- comforted the three, but the kid with the fancy robes still looked wary. The Brit turned to Crane. "So, where we going?"

Crane almost did not answer him, but an elbow in the side loosened his lips. "North of L.A., along the coast, there's a bunch of private docks and boathouses. One of those boathouses belongs to that gang of Latins I was talking about."

The robed kid nodded. "I know where he's talking about. I've been there once or twice. Had to disable a few syndicate compounds up there."

"At least we're not totally in the dark…" The shorter and obviously younger of the two bitches said. Crane knew she did not trust his intel by itself. She trusted the other kid a lot more. The look he gave her, Crane noticed was almost one of thanks, for believing him. And lust, he could tell. He saw that look in so many men passing by the strip clubs and whore houses. Though this one was more…innocent. But the defining desire was still there.

"Lead the way, Jace," the blonde-haired Brit said, pushing himself off the wall he was leaning on.

"Wait," said the other bitch. "What about him? I doubt we can walk out of here with him like that."

_No shit, Sherlock. _Crane was tempted to roll his eyes, but feared another beating.

"We'll just cover it up then," said the guy in the mask. How were you going to cover up that kind of beat up face? Crane had not even seen his face, but he knew there was no covering it up without completely hiding it.

"And how do you plan on doing that, X?" asked the guy with white hair. He looked like he was ready for a war, with all of the ammo on his body. And those pistols… No, those were not pistols. They were fucking _cannons_.

"Hey, jackass," Ranger said, slapping Crane upside the head. He stumbled forward a bit, before catching himself. "Where's your house? We're picking up some clothes for you to wear. Your current ones are covered in bloodstains."

Crane nodded and told them he lived just a few blocks away from they caught him. It would be easy to find, he said. While his voice was calm and monotone, inside he was cursing them with death, rape, and torture. He was a very angry man, needless to say. So much anger and so little opportunity to vent it.

Ranger nodded. "Would the ladies mind fetching this dashing young man his suit for the prom?"

"Wait, why do we have to go to his house? Who knows what he's been doing in there!" Phoenix exclaimed.

"I haven't done anything in there. If I did do anything, I keep out of my house. Don't want the evidence piling up," the drug dealer said, before getting slapped again.

"I didn't tell you to talk, jackass," Ranger said. "But you see? Nothing to worry about."

"I still don't like going through this guy's stuff…"

Jace, surprisingly, spoke up. "I'll go with you two, if it would make you feel better. You wouldn't as much crap to go through."

Phoenix nodded. "Any help is welcome, I guess."

Ranger cracked a small smile. "Alright then. Get out of here, you three. Get to work. And as for you," he turned to face Joseph. "When these guys get back, you're getting dressed for the prom, and we're your escorts."

Joseph Crane, drug dealer, generic scum and douche bag in the cesspit that Los Angeles could very often be, was scared. Completely and utterly scared.

* * *

**Los Angeles, Apartment Complex  
2345 Hours  
Day 2**

"What room was he in again?" Phoenix asked, scanning each of the room numbers down the hall. A very bland, unkempt hall, she had pointed out when the trio first arrived. Trash littered the floor, dust and cobwebs grew along the corners, and she was pretty sure there were at least two separate bloodstains on the white walls. There was one stain on the beige carpet just outside one of the rooms they just passed that she had no idea _what_ it was. Until she noticed the disposed condom right next to it.

The urge to vomit had rarely been greater.

"22B, I think," Jace answered. He took up the rear of the group. Phoenix led the way, with Dawn in the middle.

Phoenix nodded and narrowed her eyes at the next few signs. "19, 20, 21, 22! Right here!"

The door was wide open, and the hinges were slightly damaged, with the door itself having a large boot print on the center. Phoenix glanced inside, but quickly reared back several steps. The loud retort of a shotgun firing was followed by the click of the pump.

A large, burly man quickly ran out the door, a twelve-gauge in hand. He wrenched it up to aim at the three, and was 'assisted' by Phoenix's Keyblade striking the bottom of it, sending it flying into the air. She swung the blade back down against the man's shoulder then back up again across his face. Blood spurted free from the wounds, some of it covering Phoenix, but the rest splashed onto the wall and floor.

The man collapsed to the ground, his breathing heavy and a groan of pain erupting from his lips. His hand reached up to cover the wound over his face, which itself was covered in his blood. With his one free eye, he glared up at Phoenix.

She looked down at him. What she had just done was more out of instinct than actual desire to harm. Well, she meant to hurt him, but not cut his face open and get blood all over the place, especially her duster- would the blood even get out? Before she could say anything, Jace stepped up.

"I'll make sure he's alright, you just go inside and get the stuff." Phoenix nodded and gestured to Dawn. The two walked inside without a word. When they were inside the room, Jace dragged the man off to a corner. "Now, mind telling me what you were doing in there, and with that much heat?" The heat referred to the shotgun, as not many people who were planning to avoid a fight would carry a _shotgun_ around with them on a casual stroll. A handgun, yes, as it was easier to carry and would not kill someone just from a glancing shot, but a shotgun?

The man just looked at Jace and spat in his face. "Fuck off." Jace just calmly wiped the spit off his face and stood up.

"Okay fine, insult me, don't answer my questions. I could just let you sit here and bleed out. Or you could nice and polite, and we all go home without the need of amputating a leg." Would a leg really need to be amputated? Jace had no idea; he was just saying whatever came to mind at the moment.

"Alright fine, I'll talk! Just keep that bitch and her…sword thing away from me." That was better.

"Okay, now what were you here for?"

"My…boss…told me that one of our guys had been compromised. I was sent here to destroy any evidence he might have had, and if he was there, kill him."

"And just who was this guy?"

"Joseph Crane, a drug dealer. A fucking prick that only cares about himself, but the boss sees some kind of value in him." His boss was most likely Servitus, and if he already knew about Crane's capture…

"By the Force…the hospital!" Servitus sent those droids! He had to! If he knew Crane had been captured, then he probably knew that the Author Fighters were looking for him, so he sent those droids to assassinate them before getting too close! It all made sense! And if his first attempt did not work, then more would surely come. It made it all the more important that they took Servitus down sooner rather than later, or else everyone in Los Angeles would end up in body bags.

Jace regained his cool and continued questioning. "Okay, what did you find in there?"

"Nothing much, I don't think. Just some of his drugs and a- is that ball flying?" Jace raised his eyebrow in confusion and turned around quickly. What he saw was a small metallic ball with a handful of flashing lights and what looked like a small zapper on the bottom of the ball. He heard Dawn say from inside the apartment, "Oh not those things again!"

Time slowed down for Jace as a red light materialized from the zapper and raced towards him. Without realizing it, he leapt out of the way of the laser, his side running right into the wall. He looked up just in time to see the laser that was meant for him, strike and kill the man who he had been interrogating.

His hand slipped into his belt and pulled out his lightsaber and brought it up, activating it as the blade of blue light came forth. A few blasts from the drone were blocked by the lightsaber, the deflected laser bolts scorching the walls, floor, and ceiling around them. After only a few seconds of this, a hand clenched around the drone and crushed it. Jace sighed and deactivated his lightsaber. He glanced up once again and saw the owner of the as Dawn, and he also saw that same hint of amber in her eyes. Just what in the Force's name was she?

Dawn loosened her grip and let the droid parts fall to the floor, and then wiped her hands on her pants, a rather smug smile on her face. "That was for the warehouse."

Jace just watched her carefully, still unsure. Apparently she had been attacked by these things before, and had a little bit of a grudge going on. But what about those eyes?

"Dawn! Jace! Are you guys alright?" Phoenix yelled, running out from the room. She looked at Dawn, and then saw the body of the man she had cut up. "Is he…?"

Jace stood up finally. "Yeah. The droid did it." His look was sullen. The only reason the man died was because he jumped out of the way. What if he had pulled his lightsaber out first and blocked the attack? Did he even have enough time to do that?

Jace did not realize it, but his face was incredibly somber from his thoughts, a fact that neither Phoenix nor Dawn missed. "Hey, are you alright?" Phoenix asked, taking a step towards him. The Jedi shook his head and cleared his face of any sign of his thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm just not used to people getting killed…"

Jace was still out of it, until he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Phoenix, and she was giving him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it. You didn't pull the trigger on him, so you have nothing to regret over."

"I guess not. Thank you." He found himself smiling back at her. She pulled her hand away and nodded at Dawn.

"So, that was one of things we got attacked by at the warehouse?"

Dawn nodded. "Yeah. It actually felt good to get a little bit of payback. But, why was it here?"

Phoenix shrugged. "Maybe they wanted to finish the job? Or maybe it was just watching us and messed up? Whatever it is, the others are going to need to know about this."

Jace spoke up. "But before we do that, did you get the guy's stuff we needed?"

Phoenix nodded. "Yeah, I stuffed it in a duffel bag he had: had to empty it of his…personal belongings before I did anything." She mocked gagging herself, but there obviously was not any humor in it for her.

"I'll carry it," Jace said. He went inside and came back after a minute, the dark green bag slung over his shoulder.

Dawn nodded. "Well, let's get out of here."

And so they did.

**

* * *

**

Outskirts of Los Angeles, Mandalorian Camp  
2345 Hours  
Day 2

"You _what_?" exclaimed Six-Six, staring down at the sitting form of the Rodian tech expert, Fi. Both took refuge inside the shuttle they had arrived in to hold their conversation, one that Fi requested the two have in private. Mostly because of the clone's designation as the group's temporary commander.

"You know I don't like repeating myself, Six-Six. I sent a few of my drones out to track the Commander, and to the locations he was supposed to investigate. I even lost one when it was compromised, following those Authors to some rundown apartment."

"Why? I can understand doing it to keep in contact, but those were _spy drones_, Fi. Did you even tell Tal about this?"

"No, I didn't. Something doesn't seem right about this. Something about Tal's changed. I don't know what, but I feel it. Can't you?"

"I don't, because all that matters is completing the mission, and getting off this backwards planet." And making sure that _Buir_ gets out alive. That was probably most important of all.

"That's where you're blinding yourself! Answer this: Is Ordo really the type of person to take off for no real reason, without telling someone? Does that seem like our commander?"

"He told _me_, Fi. He made sure that I knew. I'd call that telling someone."

"But he neglected to inform the rest of us, even the man who helped raise him, Kom'rk, his most trusted adviser. Was he expecting some kind of resistance to his sudden departure? I don't know, but it's not like Tal. Not one bit."

"But…but…" Six-Six had no idea how to respond. It was true, even he knew it. Tal Ordo was not acting like himself. But that was no excuse for FI to _spy_ on him, for Mandalore's sake! Besides, there was a perfectly logical reason for Tal's change of attitude: Silas, the person who he loved like a sister (possibly as a lover as well, though Six-Six had no evidence to back it up) had been critically wounded. Of course he would want revenge! Just like he sought it now against the Jedi for what happened on Galidraan.

"I sent the spy drones after him to make sure he did not do anything we would regret. And I was right. He just picked up some kid that was orphaned as a by-product of the Author Fighters. He is completely ignoring what he told us he would do, and is coming back with the child. He didn't even visit the hospital that the Author Fighters were!"

Fi was clearly upset by this. He was always one to go by the book, and any detours from what was already established, that lacked a logical reason, set him off. Might have been because of his time spent with the cold, unemotional computers he loved to tinker with. Either way, the brash and emotional Six-Six did not like this one bit.

"Now, it's a good thing I did send those drones to the hospital, because I picked up some very good information," Fi said. "As it turns out, the Author Fighters captured a guy in the pocket of Servitus, and we have-"

Fi was cut off with a fist to the face, Six-Six's face cold and unfeeling. Fi reeled back and fell out of his chair, hitting the ground with a hard _thump_. His right hand nursed his bruised cheek, while his left steadied himself against the ground which had become his new seat.

"You listen here, _shabuir_, and you listen good. Tal is the man who raised us from the slumps of unworthiness; he made us what we are. Were it not for him, you'd be stuck on Rodia, working as an underpaid tech with no reason to live, and I'd be a corpse on Geonosis, or some other planet that the Clone Wars visited. That man united us under one banner: Mandalorian. He gave us purpose. He gave us reason. Don't you dare insult him like that without proper proof that he has anything but the best in mind for the Mandalorian people. Don't. You. _Fucking_. Dare."

Fi stared up at Six-Six, shock all over his alien face, his large, bug-like eyes even larger than they were a minute before. How could he have hit him like that? All Fi was trying to do was make sure Tal was not losing sight of their main goal, and Six-Six was just filled with blind loyalty to Tal. Yes, Fi was loyal to him as well, but he would not hesitate to remove the man from leadership if he began to put himself or anything other than the Mandalorians first. Six-Six just did not understand this.

"How can you not see it? You of all people should know that something is wrong. Tal does not go back on his word: if he said he was going to that hospital, he goes to that hospital. He doesn't break his word just because some kid looks less than fortunate. And do you even realize how much of a security risk this might create for us?"

"Yes, I do. But _Buir_ would not do anything that he thought would be of great danger to us. Not knowingly, anyway. It's just not in him."

"It'll keep going like this. First he breaks a small word to save this kid. Then, he'll find some other excuse to go against his word, until he's finally working solely for himself. I can see it happening right now."

_You're about to end up a dead man, Fi. Just keep running your mouth and you'll join those Jedi. Just keep running that mouth._ Six-Six thought. Before he could give his own retort, Kom'rk walked in.

"As much as I'm sure you two would love to keep your little chat going on, I think we need Fi's expertise with computers for a few minutes." The grizzled old Mandalorian also lacked his helmet, with a smile adorning that wrinkled face.

"What for, Kom'rk? What's wrong?" FI asked, pulling himself back up. Six-Six offered no help whatsoever.

"Silas is waking up."

"Wait, _now_? She's waking up _now_? It was estimated for her to wake up late tomorrow morning, not this evening! How the hell is she waking up this early?" Six-Six said.

"I don't know, but the computer's saying she's ready to get out, and now. So, you going to get her out, or just stand here gossiping like a couple of schoolgirls?"

Fi did not say a word in response, only walking past Kom'rk and towards the medical room. Six-Six grunted and followed him, but Kom'rk stuck his arm out and stopped him.

"I'm sensing a lot of hostility between the two of you. You going to be okay?"

Six-Six gave him a fake smile. "Yeah, were fine. Nothing wrong, Kom'rk." Sometimes it was better to keep a fake smile and keep the status quo than to bitch to everyone. Besides, if Kom'rk needed to know, Six-Six would tell him. Until then, the clone would try to deal with Fi on his own.

The bacta began to recede from the tank, draining through the pipes into a storage area of the shuttle. Silas slowly drifted to the floor until she was in a kneeling position, her body dripping wet with the remnants of the liquid. Her hair stuck to her body like tape. She was coughing up spit and other nutrients from her lungs onto the floor of the tank. It felt as if she were spitting up the lungs themselves.

The tank slid open and a towel was wrapped around her naked body, giving her warmth that the bacta did not give her. She shivered from the cold, and was sat down on a sea cushioned with…Silas could not even tell what. All she cared about was that she was warm and could breathe real air.

"Hey, you alright?" she heard, but could not tell who had said it. It was a man's voice, she knew. All she could do at the time was nod. A hand rubbed against her back, soothing her. Her vision was blurry, and she could barely see anything.

"Is that you, Tal?" she managed to ask, her voice weak and cracked.

"No, I'm not. He's on his way, though. We'll make sure you two get reacquainted." She could finally tell whose voice it was: Six-Six's. He obviously was not Tal, but he was close enough for her.

"Hey, would you mind getting me some clothes?" Six-Six nodded and left the room to do his request. Silas sighed and glanced around the room. How long had she been out? What happened while she was in that tank? Was Tal alright?

She realized most of those questions would come in time. For now, she wanted to see if there were any scars over her body that might hamper her swordsmanship skills; anything that might make it harder for her to flex a joint or move as fast. There was a mirror on the opposite side of the room for her to use.

Silas shed the towel for a moment, and felt a cold chill run across her naked body. She adapted quickly, but goose bumps still formed across her skin. There were a few scars, mostly around the forearms and neck, but she did not think that they would interfere. She even tried flexing the muscles around the scarred tissue just to make sure, and as far as she could tell, she was alright.

However, she noticed something that, as far as she knew, should not have been there. Over her left breast, was what appeared to her as a tattoo. She only had one tattoo on her, and that was the arrow markings on her cheek, the ones that went along with her tribal heritage of being a Kiffar. The Mandalorian woman could not recall at any point and time when she had got this marking, or anything else which could hint at its existence.

Said tattoo was drawn in black ink, with a faint red outline. The outline reminded her of blood. It was in the shape of what she could only assume was a snake that had coiled itself, but with its head sticking out away from its body, fangs bared. The head was facing left down her breast and body.

It looked as if it her were about to strike at her heart.

The image scared her. She knew how to deal with most physical problems. You rest up, take medicine, or jab your blade into its neck. This? She had no idea how to deal with this thing.

A knock on the door brought Silas back to reality. She grabbed her blanket and covered herself back up. Six-Six walked in with a pile of clothes- a short-sleeved shirt, sweatpants, and her own undergarments.

"Did you have to raid my locker to get this stuff?" she asked with a playful smirk on her face.

"Only because you asked me to," he replied, returning the smirk.

Silas took the clothes and patted his shoulder. "Thanks, Six-Six. It's nice to know I have someone who's nice enough to be my errand boy."

"Errand boy? Why, you must jest. I am not a mere errand boy, I am the errand _king_!" He grabbed the chair to the nearby desk and set his foot upon it, making a regal gesture, to the point of appearing snobby. This shenanigan lasted only a few moments before both of their outbursts of laughter ruined his concentration, and he nearly went tumbling down.

Silas wiped a tear from her eye, laughing far too hard to even breathe properly. When they both could take a breath in uninterrupted, she said, "You always know how to make a woman laugh, Six-Six."

"Among other things, wait did I say that out loud?" The 'accidental' slip-up sent Silas into another fit of laughter, but not as severe as before. If anyone could keep spirits up, it was Six-Six.

"If I may ask, who's the lucky lady?"

"No one, I'm just messing with you, ma'am. Though, if you wish to find out…" This time he was the one to laugh, though it was short lived. Silas did not find his flirting humorous anymore. "Sorry ma'am, didn't mean to say it like that."

"Uh-huh."

"Don't worry, it's strictly professional, you know I just like messing with people's heads. Besides, I wouldn't dream of stealing another man's girl."

"Another man's…I'm single, Six-Six."

"For now, but I know you have eyes for our knight in golden armor, ma'am." She knew who he was referring to, and her pale cheeks grew a fairly bright shade of red. Six-Six smiled and left to give her time to dress. Without giving her a chance to say anything back to him.

She quickly got dressed, trying to avoid looking at that new tattoo of hers, and left the med bay. She went first to the cockpit, where she expected Kom'rk to be. It was always his favorite place to be on the ship. She keyed the automatic door to slide open for her, as she stepped inside.

As she expected, Kom'rk sat at the pilot's chair, fiddling around with a terminal. He glanced back at her and smiled. "Nice to see you're finally up, ma'am."

"Nice to finally be up. What did I miss?"

He turned the chair around to face her without having to crane his neck. "Well, we got reinforcements. Battalion strength. We set up a base of operations here with lots of defenses. I doubt we'll get hit anytime soon. At least by anything with the firepower to prove a threat."

"Did I worry Tal that much?"

"Not you, but he recognized the Author Fighters' strength, and knew we would need some extra firepower. Mostly because of what they did to you, but even if you didn't end up in that tank, he still would have called in the cavalry."

"Damn…where is he now?"

"On his way back from a recon mission." Kom'rk made sure to ignore the fact that Tal neglected to tell _him_ about his little mission. He might as well have been sneaking out.

"Good thing I woke up before he got back. It'll be a good welcoming gift."

Kom'rk nodded. "It will be, I'm sure."

When Tal finally arrived at the camp, he was greeted with what would have been strange looks from the other Mandalorians, if they had not been wearing their helmets. Though a few did not wear them, and they gave their own questioning looks. It was obvious some of them shared the concerns that Fi had, possibly not to the same extent, but the concern was there nonetheless.

It was all because of the young child he was bringing with him. The child was walking next to him, staying near the far older man. His body language told enough about William: he did not fully trust Tal yet, but he was less afraid of him than of all of these armed and occasionally faceless men around them.

While Kom'rk and Silas were busy catching up, Six-Six was the first one to truly welcome his father back. The clone walked out of the shuttle, his helmet back aboard, with another one of his large grins across his face.

"Nice to see you again, _Buir_. I see we have a newcomer with us, as well." He bent down to William's level and said, "Might I ask what your name is?"

William scooted behind Tal's leg, somewhat frightened by the clone, despite his friendly and childish nature. Tal chuckled as he patted William's back. "Don't worry. He won't hurt you. He's a friend."

William nodded and scooted a little farther out from Tal's leg and looked at Six-Six. "William."

"Very nice to meet you, William. I'm Six-Six. Weird name, I know, but you get used to it." Six-Six put his hand out to William, but the child was still afraid and did not take it. Six-Six just chuckled and took it back. "Nah, it's alright. Just ignore the guy with the weird name, nothing bad about that at all."

William suddenly got defensive. "That's not what I meant!"

Six-Six puckered his lips, stuck his chin up, and wagged his finger back and forth. "Nuh uh uh! It is quite obvious, young sir, that you do not like people with numbers for names. What about Ruski Vishiswaz VII? Is that a bit more normal for you, William?"

William could not help laugh at the even weirder name Six-Six had come up with. Six-Six broke his stuck-up, offended stance, and revealed his more natural, goofy smile and ruffled William's hair. "There's the face I was looking for! Isn't a smile much more comfortable?"

"Yeah, it is," William said, cracking a little smile. He was missing one of his front teeth, but it only made his smile that much more boyish looking. Right now, at that moment, he looked like just a regular boy who had a regular life. Not a boy who had just lost his mother and was surrounded by mercenaries. Both Tal and Six-Six agreed that this persona of his was much more preferable.

"_Buir_, where did you find him?" Six-Six asked in a faint whisper, desiring to keep their next conversation somewhat private. He already knew the answer from Fi and his spy drones, but the son wanted to hear the answer from his father. He would not believe anyone else.

"Remember the street where the Author Fighters and the droids were said to have fought? Right there. From what I could tell, William was the only survivor."

"Just what in blazes was he doing there?"

"Six-Six, no one anticipated that battle. His mother was just taking him home when it broke out. She was killed right in front of his eyes, son."

Six-Six just nodded. "We'll try not to bring it up then."

They said nothing more on the matter.

The two took the child inside the shuttle, walking him up the boarding ramp. Tal would explain himself to the rest of the men in a little bit. His first priority at that moment was to set William up quasi-comfort. Perhaps Kom'rk could help him in that-

Tal froze. If his helmet was off, one would have been able to see that his eyes were wide. Everything about his face was lit up. His moth was agape in pleasant surprise.

Standing just beyond the boarding ramp, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a short-sleeved shirt, was Silas Vel.

"Hello, Tal. I slept well, in case you were wondering," she said teasingly. A sly smile was spread over her face.

"Silas…I didn't know you had-"

"I'm perfectly fine, thanks for asking."

She always had a way of leaving him speechless. That's one thing he loved about her, but also disliked. It left him looking like an idiot, even when he was the one who needed to appear strong. She usually knew when to not screw with him, but sometimes she still did it, if only to keep morale up. After all, what better to put the men in good spirits than to have their leader be completely embarrassed?

Silas strode towards them and knelt down by William. "Why hello there little guy. What's your name?"

Surprisingly, William told her. Something about her just made him feel more comfortable around her than before. Maybe it was because women just had that maternal charm that most men lacked? That myth probably was not true, but it did not hurt to speculate. No, there was just something about Silas which made William feel secure with her.

"Six-Six, set William up in a room. I'll meet with you shortly," Tal said. Six-Six nodded and took the boy by the hand and led him off to another part of the ship. Tal turned to Silas and snapped his helmet off and stuck it beneath his arm. He shook his head a few times, some beads of sweat flying off his hair. "So when did you wake up?"

"Just a few minutes ago."

Tal mimicked a wince of pain. "So close. I almost made it. Guess I couldn't be the first one you see when you woke up. Sorry."

She chuckled a bit. "Don't worry about it. You were doing something important, and you're here now. That's all that matters."

He smiled. "Thank you, Silas. When do you think you'll be able to work again?"

"I'll have to check with Fi and Kom'rk, but probably before the next day is up. Maybe sooner."

"Alright then. Once you're ready, we'll figure out where we need to go next." In truth, Tal really had no idea. He thought about hitting the hospital that he had neglected to go to, but by the time they were ready to move, the Author Fighters would be sure to have left, and they probably would not leave anything to tell him where they were going. He hoped by that time, someone would have figured something out.

"I think that's already been established, Ordo," said a voice from behind the two. They both turned around to see Fi, a bruise on his cheek from where Six-Six had punched him, but neither of the two people standing in front of him knew that.

"And where may I ask, that would be, Fi?" Tal asked.

"A little pier by the coastline. Some guys directly under Servitus are there that we can question."

"And where did you find this information?" Silas said. Even though she had been stuck in what might have well been a coma for the past day (no one still knew how she had woken up so early), she still had her wits about her.

"A little birdie told me. One with a few circuits, that is." Fi came as close as he could to making a smile with his alien lips, but both Tal and Silas could tell that it was a smug smile.

Neither of them truly trusted it, despite all of the time they had spent with him. They did not trust that alien smile one bit.

* * *

**Okay, so Fi's drones were a bit of an Ass Pull, I'll admit, but I really couldn't think of anything else that would set up another confrontation without seeming _extremely_ coincidental. I know i'll probably get some flak for it, but I really wrote myself into a corner, but I hope to make up for it by using it as a bridge between Fi and the other Mandos. Maybe it won't be enough for some, but I'm making an effort at least.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Los Angeles, Docks  
0500 Hours  
Day 3**

Joseph Crane glanced down at his watch. His contact was supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago. What was keeping the guy? Traffic was down, business was slow, everything was pretty much perfect for anyone to make a late night or in this case an early morning rendezvous.

The clothes the Author Fighters had gotten him more than sufficed in hiding his disfigured face from view, mostly the hood. Joseph considered himself lucky that the weather was rather cold that morning, with a few rain clouds coming and going. It looked far more natural to wear a hood and heavy clothing that hid one's body when it was cold and rainy, than it would be if it was warm and sunny out.

Joseph craned his neck around, looking as if he were stretching. In truth, he was glancing at the various hiding places where the Author Fighters were, waiting in ambush for whoever came along. Hopefully, there would be no need for bloodshed, and they could just follow him. If shit hit the fan though, then blood would be spilled. And Joseph Crane would make sure he got the fuck out of there before it was his blood being spilled.

In a window directly behind him, Joseph saw the tip of a green hood. He knew who that was: Ranger24, the bastard who made him disfigured in the first place. Even with assurances that all of them would watch his back, he still could not trust Ranger. Or any of the Author Fighters, but at least they would let him live. Servitus would kill him in a second, or several in some sick attempt to make the drug dealer suffer. Depended on his mood, really.

Footsteps brought Joseph back to reality. He swerved his head back around and saw the man he had to meet. Alejandro, the only member of the Columbian-it was Columbian, right? Maybe Venezuelan?-gang who could speak fluent English. He had no hair to speak of, completely bald. He wore a trench coat and a simple pair of blue jeans. One hand rested inside the trench coat, probably on a gun ready to fire in a moment's notice.

"I heard you got away," Alejandro said, just staring at Joseph. Those small eyes of his seemed to bury right into Joseph's soul. Like he could see everything the drug dealer was, and everything he wanted to be. There was a reason Joseph did not like making face-to-face meetings with his suppliers.

"Yeah, just barely."

"So what you want? Place to hide? Money?" His Spanish accent still hit his words, and he could never make a full sentence, leaving out certain words and pronouns. Despite his ability to understand English, he would still drive an English teacher crazy.

"A place to hide. Do you think I could stay with you guys for a few days? At least until everything calms down?"

"How much are you offering?" God. Even the people Joseph was _supposed_ to trust would backstab him for money.

Joseph sighed and pulled out his wallet. He plucked a single bill from its contents and showed it to Alejandro. "How does a hundred sound to you?"

"Deal. Follow." Two words, yet they got the message through. Alejandro swiveled on his heels and began walking the way he first came. Joseph put the bill in his front pocket, his wallet in his back, and followed quickly.

He glanced back for a second and gave a slight wink. He did not know who he was winking at exactly, nor did he know if they were looking, but he hoped at least one of the Author Fighters saw it. And he hoped that it would tell them to follow him as well.

* * *

"Alright guys, move up. Keep to the shadows, don't let anyone see you," Nukid whispered over their team mics. He had the misfortune of hiding in a box. A very cold, damp, dark, box. With only one little peephole with which to keep an eye on the meeting and if things went bad, he could have easily broken free and started throwing Shigans left and right, but that would completely screw over the purpose of hiding in the box and being stealthy.

When he saw Joseph Crane wink and walk off, he had an inkling that it was meant for them to follow as well. Nukid nodded to himself and delivered his orders to the team. However, he realized he had no way out himself, so he added "And could someone get me out of here? Please?"

It took a few minutes, but Ranger had managed to break off part of the box's side with his blade. The others had gone on ahead, letting the two catch up eventually. It gave Ranger the time to make sure he could open it up without alerting anyone to the British assassin inside, or the Twilight Warrior hacking open giant boxes.

By the time the door was open, Nukid's narcolepsy had done him in. He merely lay there on his side, using his hands as makeshift pillows, and curled up in a ball, sleeping. He was snoring rather loudly, so much that Ranger was surprised all of Los Angeles had not heard him. The Twilight Warrior slapped his face in embarrassment.

Whose bright idea was it to hide in a box where the only way out was breaking it? Then again, how in the hell had he even gotten into that box in the first place?

* * *

"Wolf, report in," Tal ordered. He rested on top of a far off dock building, Verpine rifle in hand. He had the perfect view of each of the Author Fighters as they moved out to follow the two men from before.

"Wolf's here, sir. Following," replied Silas, Wolf Squad's leader. With Fi's Intel, they had managed to track down where the Author Fighters and their contacts were meeting. There had been some fighting- Tal reprimanding Fi for going behind his back, Fi for accusing Tal of forgetting the mission, and so forth. Had Silas not intervened, one of the two would have been in the infirmary. Or the morgue, no one could say for certain.

"Roger that Wolf. Hawk, status?"

"Same." That time, Kom'rk was the voice.

"Understood. Bull will follow shortly after, over." Tal had divided his men into three teams of ten. Wolf Squad was the initial force. Once they were all certain where the enemy base was, Wolf would lead the charge. As Silas preferred to be the first one in, Wolf Squad naturally fell under her command. At the behest of Six-Six, he served as the squad's second. Not to mention Tal wanted Six-Six to watch over her. He was still unsure as to how well she could fight, having just recently recovered.

Hawk Squad would serve as a supplementary force, replacing Wolf if things started turning against them. Kom'rk was an experienced leader and fighter, but because of his age, direct combat would make things difficult. A supplementary role served him best.

Bull Squad- Tal's force- would coordinate the three teams, focusing on interrupting any unit cohesion in the enemy. Sniping, communication, whatever would make it harder for either the Author Fighters or the drug runners to make a coordinated effort, Bull Squad would handle it. Tal had assigned Fi to be in his squad, mostly because his technical expertise would help disrupt any devices they came across and Fi was not a front line fighter. The other reason was so that Tal could keep an eye on him.

Tal shifted his scope slightly, and saw Silas's orange armor sprint from building to building. It was her color, she said, and very little would make her change it, even for the sake of secrecy in an ambush. Six-Six followed her, along with the other eight members of their squad. The water of the ocean was directly next to them, and he was sure it reminded Six-Six of Kamino. It did for Tal.

On the other side, in the more developed area of the docks, Hawk Squad raced through the alleyways. Kom'rk was nowhere to be seen, only the other members of his group. Tal chuckled; Kom'rk really was a sly dog, slipping in and out of trouble. And here Tal was, giving him information-gathering roles for all these years. He would remember to have Kom'rk do more missions that involved lots of running and sneaking around in the future.

Fi crawled up next to Tal. "Shall we get moving sir?"

Tal nodded and stood up, hefting the rifle with him. Across all the ledges of the nearby buildings sat the rest of Bull Squad, all awaiting his orders.

He quickly ordered them to follow, keeping their presence a secret to all but themselves, keeping tabs on everything out there. After a while, they reached a small shack where the Author Fighters' contacts were. The two men stood talking, about what Tal did not know. He had his men perched up on the roofs all around- three snipers, including him. Fi was off by himself, organizing his drones to move in and sabotage anything that looked valuable. The other five men had simple blasters, and would swoop down when ordered.

He glanced down at Silas and Wolf Squad, arrayed all around the site. Silas had her men surround the building, though whether or not the Author Fighters were in that circle was unknown. If they were, great. If not, hopefully either Hawk or Bull Squad would be able to take them down before causing much trouble.

Speaking of Hawk Squad, Kom'rk flashed a signal over the HUD in Tal's helmet. Tal followed it until he saw the aged Mandalorian, sitting inside a building with a direct line of sight of the meeting. The separate boxes containing the parts to a chain gun surrounded him inside, as he held the massive weapon just on the windowsill. If anything that was not Mandalorian entered in their line of sight, Kom'rk would tear it to shreds, Tal knew. That old man was far craftier than Tal thought, adding another correction to Tal's perception of him.

Not that those corrections were bad things, not at all. In fact, it made Tal value Kom'rk that much more.

Tal returned the scope of the Verpine sniper rifle to the meeting, focusing on the darker-skinned of the two men. Before Tal even realized it, the dark-skinned man had pulled a gun out and began firing.

To say this was an unexpected turn-out would have been a great understatement.

* * *

"So, Alejandro, how have you been these past few months? Haven't heard much from you," Joseph said, feeling incredibly uncomfortable after the fifteen minutes of silent walking.

"Oh, good," Alejandro replied, his Spanish accent heavy in his voice. "New clients, new muscle, even got this nice new girl. Pretty. Tries to be shy, but get her under the sheets, and your…what is it called in English again? A duck? I think that's it, when she's done with you, you can't even feel your duck anymore."

Joseph tried to keep himself from bursting out laughing. "I think you mean dick, Alejandro, not duck."

Alejandro scoffed. "Duck, dick, who cares what it's called? All that matters is that this girl fucks _hard_."

Joseph just nodded, smiling. While he enjoyed a woman's company at night, he did not like to shout it to the world. But, just to keep up appearances, he played along. "You might have to introduce us sometime."

"Maybe I will. That kind of skill you have to share with the world. It's a crime not to."

They kept walking until the two finally came upon the small shack they often used for their meetings. Alejandro stopped abruptly, and Joseph had trouble not running into him.

"Joseph, you are my friend, yes?"

Joseph nodded. "Uh…yeah. Why?"

"Then you'll tell me the truth of how you escaped the Author Fighters."

Joseph had no idea what to say. They hadn't gone over any plan in case he was asked that question. He just assumed they would believe him, and so did the Author Fighters. He had to think of something quickly, or else he would surely end up dead.

"Uh…well, there was this girl with them…"

Alejandro merely stared at him, his brown eyes glaring. If looks could kill…

"Well, I kind of convinced her to let me go…and…"

"Joseph," Alejandro started. "Did you seduce an Author Fighter?"

He leapt at the idea, hoping it would save his skin. "Yes! Yes I did!"

"Which one?"

"Oh, I can't remember her name. Kind of short, brown hair, horrible lay, but when we got done, I snuck out."

Alejandro burst out laughing. "Oh my, Joseph, you truly are a Casanova. I just pick up random girls and fuck their brains out, while you get into bed with the people trying to kill you! I envy you, _mi amigo_, I do."

"Well, thanks, Alejandro. But really, I'm not that special. Most of my girls aren't even that good, while yours are spectacular." According to him, anyway.

"Yes, Joseph, yes. However, I do have one thing to suggest, something that will help you get a good girl."

"And what's that, friend?"

Alejandro, his mask of joy and comedy aside, pulled out a handgun from his coat. "Learn to lie better, the maybe you'll get a girl who can at least give good head."

Joseph's eyes widened in a mixture of fear, surprise, and, for some strange reason, relief as the first bullet exploded from the barrel.

* * *

Joseph's legs fell out beneath him, his body collapsing. He hit the ground just as the bullet passed overhead. Jace's eyebrows were furrowed as he let go of the concentration he had to knock Joseph down to keep him alive. Before the man could get another shot off, the heavy retort of a Desert Eagle resounded out, as he fell down, gaping hole in his chest.

Ranger, Jace knew. Only he had a Desert Eagle on hand, and very few of the others would have shot it that quickly. The Jedi winced slightly at the sight of the dying man. He still could not handle death that well, a part of him doubted he ever would, but now probably wasn't the time for such luxuries as a "No Killing" policy or getting nauseous at a little blood.

In those few seconds, bullets filled the air, coming from the small shack they had been lead to and surrounding buildings, though they all came from the same direction. Must not have been a good ambush if they only had one side covered, even if it was a wall of lead.

Jace glanced down from his spot in the window, free of attention from the drug cartel's gunners, and saw the shivering body of Joseph being dragged off by Quill, who was returning his own fire with his revolver. Jace could have sworn he heard a few shouts of pain whenever that gun went off, which only attested to the man's skill with the firearm.

He shook his head, trying to think of some way he could help. Charging in would not work, as he would be cut down in seconds. He doubted he could get a good enough control of any support beams or fortifications to bring them down, so Jace was left alone, sitting there watching the bullets race towards his allies' positions, with very few being returned.

He could try healing a few injuries, but-

Jace felt another presence in the building. That could not be right; he was the only one in there. He snapped his head around, and standing in the doorway, was a black-armored figure, whose body shape resembled that of the insect-like Rodians. The armor itself was fashioned in the Mandalorian style, and from that point on, Jace knew they were in trouble.

Well, more trouble than they were ten seconds ago.

He quickly slung his lightsaber around, activating it as the blade of light shone forth. "Back away," he ordered.

The Rodian cocked his head at him. "And what exactly do you plan on doing with that thing, boy? Kill me?"

Jace glared at him, and took a single step forward. "If I have to." He dearly hoped it would not come to that.

"Then try it, Jedi."

Jace, without further hesitation, charged forward and brought his lightsaber in a downwards swing. It was clumsy and easily avoidable as the Rodian made that abundantly clear, merely sidestepping the attack.

He brought his hands over Jace's shoulders, and pulled down. Jace's momentum suddenly being stopped and redirected into the floor sent him down in a heap. His fingers quickly hit the blade's activation button, dissipating the lightsaber's beam of energy from existence. If he had neglected to do that, Jace found out that he would have decapitated himself. He considered himself a very lucky man at that moment.

Jace rolled over, his side hurting as he stood back up. The Rodian stood waiting for him, almost mocking him. "And people wonder why Jedi were so easily killed in the war. I took one down without pulling a weapon out."

"Shut up," Jace spat. "I'm a poor example to compare the rest of the Order to."

"Well, you're alive and they're not, so I suppose that makes you the _best_ example at the moment. I'll just chock you up to being one of the very low outliers then in the average count of Jedi competence."

Jace did not give him another moment to speak, leaping toward him, bringing the blade up in a curve. This time, the Rodian was caught off-guard, and flinched away, but not before the lightsaber cut through part of his arm, eliciting a pain scream from the alien.

Jace smiled to himself. _Now who's the outlier?_ He did not let his minor victory overcome him, however. This man could still fight, and kill him if given the chance. To keep that from happening, Jace pressed the attack, hacking away at the Rodian, causing numerous cuts all over his body. Unlike the droids that had attacked them before, this man's armor did not resist his blade and was cut through as easily as anything else.

The Rodian was backed against the window, breathing hard. Jace could only wonder what was going through his head then. Fear? Mockery? Regret? He did not know, and he did not want to know.

"Give up now, and you'll be spared."

The Rodian merely nodded. "Fine, you win. I am your prisoner."

That was…surprising. "Wait, really? I was expecting some last minute insult and attempt to kill me or something. Wow, you just made things easier! Thanks!"

That was when the high voltage electricity shock brought Jace back to reality: if a Mandalorian surrenders, he has reinforcements right behind you. And these reinforcements come in the form of tiny, spherical drones equipped with very painful shock arms.

As Jace hit the ground, his body writhing in pain, one thought crossed his mind: _That could have gone better._

* * *

The bullets flew all around Quill as he dragged the shocked body of Joseph Crane out of the way of the drug runners. He glanced back behind them, seeing the body of Joseph's contact, Alejandro, bleeding on the ground. His shouts of pain and pleas for help were drowned out by all of the gunfire, and even if the surroundings were not already loud, all he would have been able to say would have been gargled groans.

Quill hefted Joseph's body up and tossed him behind a dumpster, then followed him with a quick roll. Where he had been before was now filled with a hailstorm of bullets, tearing concrete apart.

The Lunar Exalted panted and took a fleeting look at Joseph. He had passed out from shock at being actively shot at, it seemed. Well, at least he would not get in the way or complain about their situation, Quill supposed. There was a bright side to this after all.

Quill brought his revolver up to his face and popped the casings out. One round left. He pulled out the last round and slid it into his pack, then reached for his belt to pull out six new rounds, sliding them into the empty slots. When he was done, he slid it back into place with a satisfying click. Ragnite rounds would certainly cause a big boom, a boom perfect for destroying the enemy's defenses.

He rolled out from behind the dumpster, hitting a crouched position and began blasting apart the walls of buildings where the enemy fire was heaviest. Three rounds in, and already two floors were completely exposed. Shrapnel from both the round itself and rocks exploding forth from the broken stone had already killed half a dozen men, possibly more. Others were left wounded, either struggling to fight or struggling to stay alive.

When an area was cleared out, Quill did not waste his ragnite rounds shooting stragglers; Ranger or X Prodigy could handle that. All Quill was concerned with was exposing the enemy to his team's fire, and reducing their positions to nothing more than a blurred line.

The sixth shot rang out, missing its initial target, but instead hit a support beam of a large, one-floor building. The force was enough to completely tear the beam from its place and within seconds, the building collapsed. At least a dozen of the drug runners had been inside when it went down, crushing them beneath. Quill considered that to be a welcome accident.

He rolled back behind the dumpster to reload, Joseph Crane still in shock and still laying right where Quill had left him. Instead of just repeating his previous plan, Quill instead peeked out to observe the battlefield: half of the buildings they had been taking fire from were in ruins, men sprawled about amongst the wreckage. Bullets still raged on, but not nearly in as much quantity as before. The single shack in the center remained untouched though, as Quill focused on the more fortified areas first.

A blur of movement caught his eye, and he followed it to its source. He saw Nukid, racing into one of the exposed buildings. A few of the stragglers tried to kill him, but they were quickly disposed of. Another blur on the other side of the field revealed that X Prodigy was following suit, both men squeezing the drug runners between them.

A new sound piqued Quill's interest and tore him away from the battle they were currently winning. It sounded almost like a chainsaw being revved up, but it was…different. He swiveled around on the balls of his feet to see what it was.

About fifty feet away, in a small building which had a direct line of sight of him and the drug runners' shack, was a man in blue, Mandalorian armor. Resting on the windowsill, in his hands, was a massive Gatling laser.

"Oh son of a-" Quill began to say, but was cut off by the laser opening fire, narrowly avoiding Quill as he jumped back into the alley, a good five feet past were Joseph Crane lay.

He fumbled with his communicator and tried to get a signal to the rest of the group. All he got was static. Cursing, Quill shoved it back into his pocket and looked around for where his friends might be. Jace was up in a high building by himself, away from the fighting. Nukid and X Prodigy were off beating one side down, the others he had no idea where they were. Ranger was by the water, he knew that much, and Phoenix and Dawn were together somewhere. That was about it.

He looked to his side to see the laser fire still going strong. He inched towards the corner and when he believed he could at least see what was going on without getting his head shot to pieces, he stuck his head out for an instant, glancing to both sides.

The blue-armored Mandalorian still fired, looking rather comfortable in his building, safe. The shack he was firing at, however, was near shambles, completely torn apart. It was still standing, surprisingly, but it was in no way a defensible position any longer.

Quill reared his head back to the safety of his alley, trying to think of a plan. If he ran out and tried to shoot, he would be cut down in seconds. If he tried to flank, he had no idea if any other passages were cut off, or it Joseph Crane would survive Quill's abandonment. If he stayed, they could just get bored and come to him, giving him the chance to set up a trap, but he could very well be overwhelmed.

No matter what he did, there was always the error in the plan. But there always was an error, was there not? So, Quill decided on the best course to take in his mind: he would take the fight to them. Making sure Dragon Breaker was fully loaded with white jade rounds. The penetration levels of the white jade were astounding, and against these armored Mandalorians, it would come in handy.

He ran back into the alley, opposite of where the fire was, and circled a corner towards the building where the Mandalorian was. Now this was becoming a real fight, and a real fight was something a warrior like Quill could appreciate.

* * *

A pair of grenades went off around Phoenix and Dawn, sending the two to the ground. More explosions shook the building they were in, tearing apart the old concrete. It would not last much longer if many more grenades of that force were released.

"Now would be a good time to get to the secret bunker, ya think so?" Phoenix yelled over the numerous explosions. It was a miracle that they had not been ripped to shreds by shrapnel, crushed in a collapsing building (which by all rights, should have collapsed by now), or killed by any other form of death that grenades from a galaxy far, far away came from.

"Probably! Or maybe we could just hide in Castle Doran or something, I don't know!" Dawn yelled back, a few bits of pebble and dust in her hair.

Phoenix glanced behind herself at the window and closed her eyes for a moment. "That's it, I'm running for it!"

"Where?"

"The window! Unless you want to become debris in a building collapse, it's the only option!"

"Fine, fine! On three?"

"Three! Move your butt!" Phoenix was already up and sprinting for the window, Dawn not too far behind. They both leapt out the window and fell a story before hitting a wooden crate. The wood splintered and cracked, but they just rolled off the side onto another crate, this one holding them still.

The werewolf groaned. "Hey Phoenix?"

"Yeah…?"

"We're never doing that again."

"Agreed."

Dawn nodded and looked back up at the building they were in, dull grey and square and every bit as depressing as most of the dock buildings were, being to fall in on itself, explosions still continuing inside. She rolled to her side only to nearly smack her face against a red-colored boot. She followed the boot up to the leg, torso, and eventually head of a similarly colored Mandalorian.

"Why, we meet again, my dear ladies. I see you survived my friends in there, so I must apologize for them being inefficient."

Phoenix groaned, not in pain but out of annoyance. "Oh joy, you again."

"I think we specifically danced the dance of battle when we last met. You know, I would have won if I was allowed to bring more explosives in there."

Phoenix just stared at him, mouth agape. "You blew the entire warehouse up!"

"Like I said, if I was allowed more explosives."

"You're insane."

"About explosives? You would not be far from the truth, then. Now, shall we undergo the sequel to our last epic, or shall we talk like civilized people over juma juice, discussing the exact destructive properties of my top five favorite bombs?"

Neither of the two Author Fighters had anything to say to that.

"No answer? Well, since you can't have a conversation if only one party speaks, then I suppose the sequel it is! Tango of Bombs II: Three Nukes Are a Crowd!"

The Mandalorian brought his left arm up, right hand over the gauntlet, and aimed it at the two. _Chuck-chick_, was the sound it made as he pumped it, and both girls ran off the crate back onto the ground. A second later, the entire wooden crate had exploded into a mixture of shrapnel and splinters. The Mandalorian had avoided being hurt with a jetpack.

The two sprinted a short distance, rounding off the corner of a small building, only to have the Mandalorian follow them. As he rounded the corner as well, reloading the grenade launcher installed in his gauntlet, he was suddenly forced down to the ground. He smacked the ground incredibly hard, face first. He struggled to get up, but some invisible force kept him subdued to the ground.

Phoenix's gauntlet hand was extended towards him, focusing her energy into forcing the gravity down around him. Gravity control was so useful, was it not? Dawn cracked her knuckles, walking towards him.

"Ah, well it seems we had not done proper research on some of you ladies. I had no idea you possessed such talents as to pluck me from the air and toss me onto the floor."

"It seems not, now mind telling us your name?" Dawn asked. Phoenix was still concentrating on keeping him down, but allowed herself to be a little lax. He could move a few muscles and not be a threat, and if she put too much power into it, she would not be able to use anymore powers for a while, as it would exhaust her gauntlet's power orbs.

"Well, I know that you are Mistress of Dawn, a human with enhanced physical attributes. And I know that you are Phoenix of the Darkness, a girl with a blade in the shape of a key. Not that hard to tell, really, but there you go."

"And you are a Mandalorian who loves making fun of people and blowing things up," Phoenix mumbled.

"Rarely has there been a truer description, though the Kaminoans said the same thing of me. Well, to answer your question, I'm Six-Six. And yes, it's a number, so go ahead and get all the 'Oh, don't you have a real name' junk out of the way. It's my name, so deal with it."

"So you're a clone?" Phoenix asked.

Six-Six nodded, though only slightly. His neck still hurt from the increased gravity, but he could get used to it. "Fought in the Clone Wars as a commando, lost count of droids I blew up about halfway through. Probably around a few thousand…"

"You're talkative for a captive," Dawn said.

"Ah, the commander's been telling me that for years. Never quite got through the helmet, y'know?"

"Obviously…"

"Yes, well perhaps if you let me go, we could finish our little fight?"

"Do we look stupid to you? We've practically won; we're not going to let you go!" Phoenix yelled.

"Oh, have you?"

A lone red light centered itself on Phoenix's chest. Then another, atop her head. More appeared, centering on both women. They shared a quick glance, instantly knowing was about to happen.

"Well, this is going to end badly," Phoenix said

"Author Fighters, I know this may be inappropriate, but do I have permission to begin laughing?"

* * *

Silas charged forward at the man in the green cloak, much like the last time they fought. Both of her blades extended to their full distance. He had already seen her and brought his blade up to either cut her apart, or to block her attack.

Her right blade slammed down on his, pinning it to the ground as she swung her left one around to sever his head. He ducked, grabbing her arm with his free hand and shoved her past him, sending her stumbling and him regaining his blade's control.

She leapt forward a few steps out of her control, then finally stopped herself and turned around to face him. By the time she had gotten around, he was already on her, pressing the attack. She parried each blow, though her arm hurt after each hit. He was putting incredibly force into each swing then.

The rest of her troops had gone on forward to secure the rest of the area, and she wished to fight this man alone. A part of her could not stand not knowing who the better swordsman between the two was, and having outside help would only tilt things too far in her favor to truly figure out which.

She saw an opening, too wide of a swing. She took it instantly, crouching low and jabbing both blades forward.

Ranger, seemingly expecting this, leapt back, smacking both of her blades down to the ground with the flat of his sword. Once she was down, his foot came up, striking her in the faceplate. She was knocked back from the force of the kick, but was more or less unscathed.

"Are you that easy to beat down? Get rid of your armor, and you'd be crying right now, I'm sure."

Silas stumbled back to her feet, glaring at him from her visor. "I'm just getting warmed up, _aruetiise_. Now, you're going to face the true strength of a _Mando'ade_."

"Just try it, bitch. Whatever you can do, I can dish out ten times worse, and take it just the same."

"We'll see about that."

And with that, Silas charged forward again, not unlike her initial attack. Ranger thrusted his blade out to run her through, but she just ducked underneath the massive sword and sliced at his kneecaps. A short grunt of pain escaped Ranger's lips, but he did not falter and swung the sword downwards.

The blade was angled so that instead of hitting her right in the back, which would have done nothing because of the armor, it instead slid right into her side, where only armorweave existed, easily penetrated by his sword. It plunged through cloth and flesh, but only so far before the angled blade hit the armor of her front. He tore the blade out, blood rushing out of the massive wound on her side, as she collapsed to the ground.

_Really? They went to all that trouble of healing me just to have me get skewered in my first battle back?_

Silas was breathing heavily, looking up at Ranger, her helmet hiding her pained expressions. Was she to die here? Was she to be killed by this man whom she barely knew? Was she to just abandon the Mandalorians, the child William, and Tal on this foreign planet, just because one man happened to best her in sword combat?

"You were fun, girl, but the game's over."

Even now, all she could do was laugh. Even with her life's blood running across the concrete of his city, she laughed. "Yeah, I guess so. Nice to see someone beat me, I guess."

Ranger, for some reason, laughed with her. "Are you laughing? I guess there are worse ways to die than this."

She laid her head back, and closed her eyes. "You did good…for an _aruetiise_, an outsider, that is. You would have made one hell of a Mando, that's for sure."

"Nice to see to get some respect around here."

"Yeah…it is." She could feel her life draining away, her strength weakening. _And I was going to adopt that kid when this was over. Maybe get Tal that new jetpack he was eyeing. Or maybe Six-Six wanted a big bomb, I don't know. Too late now, though. Too late…_

As her strength finally waned its last, her heart pumping its last blood, her lungs receiving its final breath, she relaxed, for a moment.

But her relaxation was short lived, as life was given back to her through pain, her heart hastened his beating, her lungs regained air, as her body was wracked with incredible, pain. Burning, her muscles feeling torn apart and put back together, her mind about to split open, everything simply_ hurt_.

But what hurt most of all, was her breast, where the tattoo had been placed upon. It felt like lava was being poured upon her chest, like a knife repeated stabbed her through the heart. She could not comprehend it, she could not describe it, and she could not _tolerate_ _it_!

As Ranger began to walk away from Silas's corpse, the shuffle of movement forced him to see, and what he saw surprised him, to say the least.

Silas, her wound healed, stood once more, ready for battle. "I lied before. _This_ is the true strength of a _Mando'ade_."

**

* * *

**

Been a while, let's hope I can keep these chapters coming without taking a decade to finish (knowing my writing rate, I wouldn't even hope for that). And let's also hope this turned out well enough for you all.

**Not much else to say, so…yeah.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Los Angeles, Docks  
0530 Hours  
Day 3**

Another one of the smugglers went down, being thrown back by the force of Tal's Verpine shatter gun. The Mandalorian rested on the rooftop of one of the various warehouses that were built on the docks of Los Angeles. He scanned the ground for anymore targets and, once he was sure there no more in that area, he stood up and jogged to another roof to get a new view of a different area.

He had long since deployed the rest of his unit to continue fighting on the frontline of the battle, in the belief that they would hopefully be capable of reinforcing any other units on the ground with their numbers. Tal chose to stick with what he was best at: sniping. So far, he had fifteen confirmed kills, and would doubtlessly get more as the fighting continued.

He jumped onto another building, and quickly fell into the prone position. He scanned this new area quickly. He was directly overlooking a wide intersection,, with the cross point about fifty meters away from his position. Directly below him was a three-way intersection, with the road he was looking on splitting into two paths parallel to him. At the far end of the path was the Pacific Ocean.

Two figures moves at that far end and his body moved on instinct. He aimed at one's center and fired, then did the same with the second one. Both went down within a second of each other.

Tal smiled to himself. That was one of his best shots, for sure. Two kills, two seconds, both of them clean and quick. Jango would have been proud.

He waited there for several minutes, taking out five more hostiles. Two of them almost got away, and he had to put extra rounds into them, but they went down regardless. He cursed. He was a better sniper than that. It should not have taken more than one shot to kill simple criminals and gang members who had no body armor and most likely had no military training at all.

It was disgraceful.

Tal sighed, but kept his focus on the intersection. Despite his admittedly high kill count, he had never had this many confirmed kills in any other area, always moving around after only one or two kills. Three at the most. This was definitely a hotspot, but if he stayed too long, they would learn not to take this route, and he would have to move somewhere else.

He was about to get up and move on, when his sensor picked up someone behind him. He turned his head only to see a massive sword come crashing down towards him. He rolled to his left, barely missing the blade. It slammed into the rooftop, cracking the tiles and cutting into the metal.

Tal looked up at the holder of the sword, and he recognized the masked man known as X Prodigy. He swung the rifle towards the masked Author and fired. X Prodigy moved just in time, and the shot only grazed his side. It still drew blood, but there was no way it would even slow a person down.

The sword once again came swinging down for him, and Tal activated his jetpack, and flew back, inches above the rooftop until he cleared the building. Once he did, he stabilized himself and returned to an upright position.

That was lazy of him. He should have been watching his sensors the entire time, making sure no one would sneak up on him. He was careless, and it nearly got him killed.

X Prodigy put away his sword and drew a pair of pistols. Tal did not wait for him to become a target, and instantly began to fly away, putting his rifle away and drawing his two WESTAR blaster pistols.

The two began firing at each other. Tal hovered and flew around each shot, while X Prodigy rolled and leapt around the ones aimed at him. It was fairly even, Tal believed.

Then, Tal noticed a second blip on his sensor. Before he could do anything to react, he felt a finger jab itself into his right armpit, and then a sharp pain, not unlike that of a bullet wound.

His arm jerked forward, then back, and smacked someone in the face. He turned around, left hand over his wound, and looked to see a young blonde man fall onto the rooftop Tal had just fled. He also recognized this one, the Author Fighter Nukid.

Nukid hit the rooftop hard, his body arching forward from the force of impact before settling back down against the tiled roof.

Tal took his attention away from Nukid and back to X Prodigy, barely avoiding a burst of fire from the Author's two pistols.

The Mandalorian flew back even further, taking random potshots whose intention was not to hit but merely deter X Prodigy from anymore attacks. Needless to say, it did not work, as the fire kept coming for him.

Tal dropped himself onto the rooftop behind him. The roof sloped upward and he sprinted over it, before setting himself down behind it, using the slope as cover from the Author Fighter.

He put his hand just above the top of the roof's slope, and fired three shots, before dropping it back down to his side. He dropped his pistol and touched his wound. It stung a bit, and when he took his hand away, it was covered in blood.

His helmet fell back against the roof, and he cursed. "Damnit…why the hell didn't I bring a med kit with me?"

He poked his head over the top of the roof, and glanced at the two Authors. X Prodigy was helping Nukid up, the latter of which looked to be in fairly good condition. It seems the hit Tal gave him did little to stop him.

He fell back behind the roof's slope and returned to treating his wound with…well, nothing, really. All he did was use his hand to put pressure on it and try to slow the bleeding.

He glanced back over, and was surprised to see that they had left. He did not see them at first, until he turned his head to the left and saw X Prodigy charging him, the massive sword in hand. He fell back, picked up his pistol, and continued to retreat. Tal ran along the roof, jumping when it ended onto the adjacent roof. Rinse, and repeat.

Tal knew that he would not be able to take them both on in a fair fight, especially in such close range. If he could get some distance between them, and make sure that he could line up an easy shot on them, he would be able to take them down, no problem. However, as long as they were able of closing in on him so quickly without him having to retreat as well, chances were that he would not make it out.

He kept running, craning his head back to see where the two Authors' progress was on keeping up with him. They were catching up on him, slowly but surely.

When he next looked back forward, the rooftop he was about to end. He ran and fell off, then gripped a ledge below the roof, dangling. He had a strong enough grip to keep him there for several minutes. He kept an eye on his sensors; paying attention to the two dots that he knew resembled the Authors X Prodigy and Nukid.

When they came to the edge, both stopped, looking around for him, just like he expected. If they stopped, he had a surprise attack. If they kept running, he had a chance to escape or a flank attack. Either way, he would have a theoretical advantage.

Theoretical being the key word.

When he realized that they would not leave anytime soon, he holstered both of his pistols, though it took a minute to do so quietly. Once that was done, he pulled out his lightsaber, the one he had taken from his first Jedi kill back on Galidraan. He did not activate it yet, that would come later.

He gave them another minute. They were talking, he realized, but he ignored the words for the most part.

Tal Ordo took a deep breath.

He activated his jetpack suddenly and without warning, flying right into their faces. Neither of them expected it and tried to jump back. He did not give them that option, his hand going to the opposite wrist and hitting a button on his gauntlet, turning on his flamethrower. He could not see beyond the inferno that he had unleashed, but Tal was sure that both of them were caught in it, as he could a scream of pain come from them.

After a minute of letting the roof and hopefully the Author Fighters burn, he turned it off. There was still some fire that tried to survive on the rooftop, but without anything sufficiently flammable, it soon died out.

But the thing that surprised Tal the most was that there was no body. Not even a charred corpse or limb.

He looked around, searching for any sign of them. There was none.

Tal changed his mind on that regard when some kind of blade struck him in the back, right below his jetpack. That was part of where his _beskar'gam_ protected him, the nigh invulnerable armor of his people, and all he felt was a small amount of the force from said blade.

He turned around only to see Nukid standing on the other rooftop behind him, his body looking like he had was ready to throw a kick, leg held back and the muscles in it tense. No blade in hand. There was also no blade on the ground suggesting he had thrown it.

Perhaps Nukid had jumped off the roof and went over to the other one while Tal was occupied with burning what he thought was them? That was a completely reasonable explanation, if a bit shaky, given the little amount of time they had to do so without being burnt alive.

But then, where was Z Prodigy? If was indeed killed in the fire, where was the body? Or if he had escaped, why was he not helping his friend?

The arm that wrapped around Tal's neck, wrenching him from the air and back onto the rooftop, gave him an adequate answer.

"Now listen here, Goldie," he began. "I would really appreciate it if you would stop shooting at us- you and your friends, before we end up killing most of them."

Tal remained silent. The Mandalorian sincerely hoped that this was not the extent of his restraining measures. Yes, he could choke Tal off and snap his neck, but that was little help when both of his arms were free.

He slowly twisted the lightsaber in his hand, pointing the end of it into X Prodigy. Where exactly, he could not tell. Before anyone could realize what he did, he pushed the activation button.

The beam of light appeared suddenly, cutting straight into X's stomach, the end of the blade jutting out from his back. A harsh scream of pain erupted from the masked Author's lips, and he instantly let go of Tal, who in return wrenched the blade from out of him. It deepened and widened the wound in him, and he was left on the ground, writhing in the pain of being impaled.

Before he could turn around, Tal felt his entire body go stiff, as some kind of incredible force struck him through his back. He arched his back, shouting in pain. Blood was splattered on the inside of his helmet.

He then collapsed, his body far too weak to pick itself up, and he only lay there, sprawled out upon the rooftop. His heart was near to bursting, his lungs felt like exploding with each breath.

He turned his head, and saw Nukid standing behind him, both fists held together, outstretched. He was panting hard

"The Rokuogan…if you hadn't done that to X, I never," he took another breath. "Never would have had to do that to you, bastard…"

Tal tried to respond himself, but breathing was enough of a problem.

"Not surprised you can't talk. That attack pretty much destroys your internal organs…but I can see you breathing, though. You'll die soon enough, regardless of your armor."

* * *

Hurricane's Quill leapt out of the way as a hail of blaster fire came towards him. He hid behind one of the many buildings in the area, as the Mandalorians stopped their fire down the alley he was once in, and began to swarm the area, searching for him.

This was urban warfare in its finest: ducking through alleys and streets, taking potshots at one another, laying traps and sniping from rooftops.

And it exhilarated Quill as a warrior.

Dragon Breaker was at his side, ready to fire on anything that came around the corner. Two Mandalorians charged in. Quill was ready, and he let off two quick shots. The first shot took one in the chest, while the other scored him a headshot. The white jade rounds he used tore through the armor easily, and left both dead before they hit the ground.

Three more Mandalorians came around that corner, and three more joined their companions in the afterlife. Quill poked his head around the corner, and saw that it was clear. It was clear; all the hostiles had either been killed by him, or had run off somewhere.

The Lunar Exalted ran sprinted down the street, keeping his head low. Before the next intersection began, he hit the wall to keep himself from running out into the open blind.

When Quill left Joseph Crane alone, he was not sure if the former drug dealer would survive without protection, but it did not concern him much. The man was a douche bag, through and through, but he had provided good information to the team, so he deserved at least some protection for his life.

However, Joseph Crane was not on his mind; the Mandalorian with the gatling gun was. He had ran through various streets and alleys, trying to find a suitable position with which to flank him from. Nearly all of the paths were covered and fortified, and he was in far too close to try using ragnite rounds or even his Kamehameha-esque Blizzard Cannon to tear apart the defenses that had been set up. The explosions could end up killing him, or some of his allies, or even Crane.

Without knowing where any of the other Author Fighters were, or what affect the rounds would have on such closely packed buildings, he did not want to risk it.

Perhaps he could use his shape shifting abilities to infiltrate their defenses? It would be easy: turn into a mouse, sneak up on them, turn back, and then make them think they were getting hit with divine retribution from God Himself.

The only problem with that was that once he reverted back into his original form, he would pretty much be surrounded, and chances are, be cut down in seconds.

That's when it came to him. If he could get close enough to a large enough opening with a good enough view of their position, he could use his ability to manipulate ice and wind to actually bring frozen Hell down on them from above. Specifically, an attack he called Azure Sky Rain.

That would be where his shape shifting came in, using his mouse form to find such a position with which to hit them. Hopefully, the ice would be sharp enough, tough enough, and accurate enough to get through that armor of theirs'. If it wasn't…he'd improvise.

Quill glanced down the all that he was at, and saw that it was empty. Good. With no audience, none of them could tell what he was doing.

He then proceeded to turn into his mouse form, shrinking in size to fit that of a mouse. Fur grew over his body, his face extended into an elongated nose, and a wiry, scaly tail sprouted from his back.

Quill ran down the alley, but took his time. As mice were much smaller than humans, he could not travel as quickly as he could if he remained in his human form. Still, he reached the end of the alley, and then glanced down the next one, to his right.

Sitting there was the very building in which the Mandalorian with the gatling gun had situated himself. While Quill could not see him, he recognized the building itself. Two Mandalorians stood guard by the door that lead into it, both armed with a blaster rifle- automatic by the looks of them.

Quill began his dash for the door, and while one noticed him, the Exalted was paid no mind as a simple mouse. Even the bright symbol on his forehead did nothing to give him away.

Mandalorians may have been some of the best fighters in the galaxy, but these two definitely were not the brightest.

He slipped through the door, and began looking around. All the windows and doors were covered, two guards each…save for the lone window that had a direct line of sight with the shack that Joseph Crane had led them to. That one was covered by the blue-armored Mandalorian, the massive gun resting on the windowsill.

There were only two windows: one with the blue Mandalorian, and another, directly across from it. The other two walls merely had opened doors, the two Mandalorian guards waiting right outside each entrance.

There were also no stairs, merely a ceiling and what he believed was a single floor building. That seemed unlikely, as the building from the outside looked as if there were three floors to it, save for the one he was in now, but if there were additional floors, he had no way of reaching them from in here.

For the most part, the room itself was bare: no tables, no crates, nothing. Only the Mandalorians and the limited supplies they brought with them were present. That would be difficult for him, as he would have no cover if a firefight did start.

What was even worse was that he had no suitable opening to take them all out at once. A few at a time, yes, but that would prove to be too dangerous, as they would gang up on him, and then he doubted that he would last long against that kind of onslaught.

While Quill was in the middle of trying to figure out how he was going to proceed with his attack, a hail of bullets from the door he had entered drew everyone's attention. The two guards ran off towards the fire.

The blue Mandalorian shook his head. "Did they both have to leave?"

One of the Mandalorians on the other door piped up. "Well, it has been pretty dangerous out there. It's pretty natural to want to travel in pairs, at the least."

"I suppose, but it still leaves with less cover than I would like. Anyone wants to handle that door now?" he asked, turning his head towards the two pairs left. The one who spoke nodded and walked over to the door, and resumed his guarding duties.

That was when Quill got an idea. If he could not find a point from which to hit them all at once, he would make one.

Quill dashed outside the same door and found a corner where no one could see him. He transformed back into his human form, and switched out the first round of the white jade bullet and replaced it with a smoke round.

He poked his head around the corner and before the Mandalorian guard could get a shot off, he fired the smoke round right into the building, filling it with blinding smoke. He could still see the Mandalorian at the door, and fired two quick rounds into him, both in the chest, killing the mercenary.

With no more Mandalorians in his vision, he turned into another of his forms, this time, a wolf, and dashed forward into the smoke. As a wolf, he could smell them fairly easily, and he chose for the easy target: the guard on the door right in front of him.

Breaking out into a sprint, he tackled the guard, knocking him down out of the smoke, jaw clenched down on his neck, teeth biting down through the armor weave and into the skin. He was sure had had punctured the windpipe, and would soon die.

Quill pulled away, blood dripping from his jaw, he turned around. The smoke was dissipating, and he doubted he would be able to do the same thing twice. So, he trotted around the building, passing through the next path easily enough.

He came to the side with a window and two guards, if he remembered the layout correctly. Before walking next said window where the two sentries would be able to shoot him, he went down even further to get some distance.

After passing into the next alley down, he glanced down into the building. The two guards and the blue Mandalorian had left their posts, gathered in the center of the room. They were discussing something, probably about the smoke that had allowed two of their men to die. With their attention somewhere other than the battle at hand, Quill knew this was the time.

He ran back through the same street, and positioned himself right next to the now unguarded window.

He began to gather together the water molecules in the air, and then got to work on freezing them. It took several minutes, he thought, most likely due to the fairly warm weather that Los Angeles had, but once he was done, he had at least a dozen ice spikes ready to strike.

Quill stepped in front of the window, seeing the three Mandalorians.

They stared at each other for a moment.

Guns were raised.

Quill smirked, and before a shot could be fired, he let loose with the ice, controlling the wind to carry it through the window.

One Mandalorian was impaled with three different spikes: one in the thigh, another in the side, and a last one through the chest. His armor apparently was not of the same quality as some of the other ones, because if it was, there was no way one of the ice spikes would have been able to pierce the armor.

The second Mandalorian was hit with only one spike: through the neck.

The last Mandalorian, the blue-armored one, instead chose to leap to the side to try and avoid the ice. Most of the ice passed by, impaling itself on the cement floor.

One spike, however, struck his shin, going straight through the flesh and bone and trapping him against the floor.

"Ah, damn it!" he cursed, turned over to inspect his wound. "This is going to be a bitch to treat."

Quill chuckled, and pulled out Dragon Breaker. "Impalements are rather difficult to treat."

"Aye, they are. At least it wasn't wooden. Now I won't have to worry about picking out a thousand splinters from my damned leg." The Mandalorian chuckled.

"Your welcome." It would probably be easier to just shoot him then, Quill thought. But then, that would not be a warrior's death, and giving the Mandalorian any less than a warrior's death would be an insult to him and his culture.

If he let him live, however, Quill ran the risk of having him be capable of getting back up and causing even more trouble for the rest of the team.

Before a decision on whether to kill the mercenary could be made, a small round device was thrown in his face. Then, it exploded in a bright flash of light that blinded him.

When Quill next came to, he saw the Mandalorian, standing up right, the ice still in his leg. However, it appeared as if it had cut. While Quill was blinded, he must have used a very strong knife to cut through the ice and free himself. Still, he obviously favored the impaled leg, considering that there was still a large chunk of ice in it, after all.

"Heh, flash bangs. Gotta love 'em."

Quill smirked and shook his head, still a little woozy from the flash bang. "Clever. Kind of surprised why you didn't use a real grenade, though."

"Simple: all the other grenades I had would have killed me too. Blame Six-Six for giving them too big of a boom." Quill had no idea who Six-Six was, but he must have lived explosions.

The Mandalorian drew his own blaster pistol, against Quill's Dragon Breaker.

Both leveled their weapons at their respective opponent's head.

* * *

The green cloaked swordsman took a step backwards, parrying another one of Silas's strikes. She was sure that he did not understand just what had happened, because she did not either. One second, he had killed her. Shoved a blade right through her chest. Then the next, she had been filled with this incredible energy. It revitalized her. She was stronger, faster, more agile, and could react faster than before.

And she had a truly insatiable need to kill this man.

She pressed on, jabbing and swinging her blades at him. He was barely keeping up with her, stuck on the defensive. She had already cut his cheek, and she could see the red blood dripping down his face. She lunged at him, her left blade thrusting forward to impale his head. He reared back, the end of the sword nicking his nose.

"What the hell are you?" he muttered, his hand reaching up to wipe away the blood.

"I'm Mandalorian. I thought I told you already," she answered, charging him again. He was slowing down, she could tell. She was wearing him out, and while he was tired, she was energetic. The more energy he exerted, the more she seemed to have. His head would be rolling in a matter of minutes.

She kept her body low to the ground, and both blades poised to jab. With her new speed, she would surely be able to gut him. She was wrong, as not half a foot from him, she was knocked back several feet, her body covered in pain again, burning.

Her blades retracted themselves back into her gauntlet, and she placed a hand on her chest plate, trying to hold or quench the pain that tore her apart. It was useless of course, as putting a hand on a piece of armor would not help the burn she felt, but it was more of instinct than a true attempt. However, after a few moments, she felt the pain fade away, but she dared not get up, not yet.

She glanced up at the swordsman, and saw him smirking, his hand outstretched in an open palm. "You may be quicker than me, but I still have the power of Twilight." He reached into his cloak and pulled out a handgun. It looked to be what the Earth locals called a Desert Eagle.

He fired a single shot into her leg, where the only protection was a layer of armorweave. The bullet went in effortlessly, and she screamed in pain, bringing her leg up to cradle to wound. Blood began to ooze out, staining the black material red.

"Now, you're not a regular person, are you? Just what was that power you exhibited a minute ago?" he asked, the Eagle still aimed at her.

She had no idea what the answer to that question was, and she merely shook her head. As she did so, though, she could feel the bleeding slow and nearly stop, and she could have sworn she heard a cling, similar to a bullet landing on the ground.

Another bullet, this time, in her forearm. She screamed again. The same question as before. Still, she did not give an answer, and the bleeding receded once more, and the cling was heard for a second time.

"I'm not blind, and I'm not stupid. You obviously have a healing factor. How else could you recover from that sword wound I gave you? How else are you recovering from these bullets I'm putting in you?"

She had no idea what he was talking about. She just remembered the feeling of power she received, and the warmth coming from that mysterious mark. That was the only thing that struck her as odd, but in the heat of battle, she did not care.

Silas stood up, despite knowing that it was probably a stupid thing to do, at least in her position. The Author Fighter continued to shoot her until his Desert Eagle's clip was empty. Seeing as his other hand had his sword, he could not exactly reload.

She felt the bullets go into her; she felt the pain and felt herself bleeding, but her mind ignored the discomfort of her body. The pain faded away, as did the blood. She ejected her swords and charged him again.

He dropped his handgun and focused on cutting her in two. She did not move to block the sword, letting it cut her at her waist. The blade went in several inches, and was covered in blood, and she felt like falling over and dying, but she refused to do so.

Silas used their close capacity and swung her two swords around into his body, one in his hip, the other in his sternum. The swords, despite the force she put into them, did not go in as far as she anticipated, only a few inches, despite being full on stabs, but he grunted in pain, and the two separated just the same.

She could feel the cut against her waist healing, just as she thought. His wounds, however, did not heal like her's did, and he was stuck nursing the injuries she left upon him.

She lunged at him once more. He raised his blade half-heartedly with one hand, and when she came into range, slung it down at her. She saw the hint of some kind of darkened aura, but did not have enough time to observe it in full detail. As before, she did not bother with defense, which proved to be her downfall as she was cut apart from shoulder to hip and sent flying back, the burning sensation once again present.

He chuckled, as the aura around his blade faded. "Twilight Slash…"

As she hit the ground again, she looked down at her chest to see the armor and the armorweave beneath hat torn apart,, and her chest nothing but a bloody swatch. Unlike before, it did begin to mend back together until several moments later, and it was at a slower pace than before.

"Even you have limits to what you can do," he said, walking over to her. He slammed the end of his sword into her gut, and blood splashed up from the new gash he made, covering her visor and his boots in the crimson liquid.

"Whereas for me, I'm just getting started!" He twisted the blade in her gut, shredding apart anything she might have had for organs, and crushing them into what was the equivalent to mush.

She looked up at him, too weak to try and force him off, to hack at his arms or legs, to even raise her own arms. Just how many times had she been brought to this point before in the past few days? Three? Far too many times for one person, she knew that. If she was going to die here, it should just be over and done with.

Her head lolled back against the cemented ground. Her eyes closed. Her breathing slowed once more. She hoped that this would be the final time that she would die. If not, then whatever deity watched over the galaxy was a cruel and sadistic one indeed.

* * *

When Jace came to, his body ached, most of all his head. His arms and legs were stiff and numb, and when he tried moving them, all he got in return was resistance. He glanced down at where he felt his limbs to be, and saw that they were tied together with rope. And the rope-at least around his wrists- was tied to a support beam.

This was uncomfortable, at the least.

He struggled for a moment, trying to wrench free or slip his hands or feet out from under the bindings. It didn't work. He sighed, glancing around the room. The room itself was barren: cold, lifeless, and all the walls were gray. A single window peered directly at him, the sun's first rays beginning to shine through.

A mere mockery at his hope to freedom, he was sure.

He could hear gun and blaster fire, a few screams of dying men, and explosions. The battle was still raging, apparently, and he felt a pang of guilt for not being able to join his new comrades out there. As far as he knew, they were being eradicated by the Mandalorian forces. Or perhaps it was the other way around?

Whatever was happened, he was determined to see it through. That's what Master would have done anyway- see it through to the end.

Jace closed his eyes, and felt the Force around him, in him. He focused on the ropes restraining him, trying to see if he could untie them. If Force sensitives could lift ships and propel them at people, he could untie a piece of rope, could he not?

Though, without having seen how it was tied, it made things difficult. He fumbled with merely trying to find where the rope began and where it ended, and when he did, he ended up making it tighter, hurting his wrists in the process. The coarse texture of the rope dug into his skin, and whenever his wrist moved just a little bit, it cut into him some more. The Jedi could feel blood running down his hand, the warm liquid discouraging him even further to not move his hands.

He immediately got around to reversing that mistake, trying to feel the rope as if it were in his hands. He pictured it in his mind as if he were a third party, and 'pulled' at it, loosening it some. One strand pulled free and his wrists had room to breathe and move, though not without some restriction.

He continued to do this for some time, until his hands were completely free of his bindings. The rope fell to the floor amidst a small pool, well; it was more like a puddle, of blood. He rubbed his raw wrists, and blood covered his palms. He tore off a part of his robe and used it to bandage his cuts, stopping the blood for now.

Now that his hands were free, he got to work on the rope holding his legs together. He used his own hands, not the Force this time, finding it much easier when you had your own flesh and blood to help you and not some invisible power.

Once he was completely free, he stood up slowly, almost falling down after being tied up for so long. He would have to stretch to get complete feeling back, but he did not have time to stretch. He checked his belt for his lightsaber, and was not surprised to find it gone. Along with the rest of his supplies, but the lightsaber was the most important thing.

He wondered why he was left alive. Surely they would have killed him where he stood. Perhaps they wanted him alive for some reason? A bounty, torture, hostage, he was not sure.

Jace walked over to the door and found it surprisingly unlocked. He pushed it open, and peered his head out. No guards, just an empty hall, stretching on in both directions. He stepped out into the hall, and headed to his right. Hopefully, that would be where the exit would be. Or his lightsaber.

For at least fifteen minutes, he walked. Cold walls and gray stone was his only companion as he continued his search. The hall did not end, only turning at least twice. Was he going around in a circle? A building could only have so many corners before he got to his starting position again, and he found no staircases or elevators for him to take, only more doors. All locked, surprisingly.

Maybe he should have gone back to his room and leave from the window. It would have to be easier than wandering around this lifeless building for hours.

After the third corner and about halfway down that fourth hall, he finally found a stairway. Gun and blaster fire was coming from downstairs, the sounds of combat echoing up the staircase. Jace slowed his stride, and kept to the wall. He inched along the side, and when he got to the corner of the stairwell, a body was flung past him into his hall.

It was a man, wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans. His entire body was riddled with plasma scarring, obviously from a blaster. He was apparently one of the gang members that had started the fight. He had no weapon on him, so he might have lost it before he was propelled back. Or he may not have had one to begin with.

Either way, he obviously had friends, as the firefight continued downstairs. The sounds of battle kept their melancholy chorus going.

Jace took a deep breath and inched his head around the corner, peering down the staircase. A lone, spherical drone hovered there, its red eye gleaming in the low light. Jace recognized it: it was one of the Rodian's drones.

Perfect.

Jace concentrated on the drone, his hand outstretched towards it, as if he were holding it. His fingers squeezed and his hand trembled a moment before the machine was crushed by an invisible force, until it was nothing but a piece of crumpled up scrap metal, and fell to the ground with a clang that was unheard by any others in the building, their own fighting too loud for the drone's fall to be heard.

He continued down the staircase, finding more drones that needed crushing, and more bodies- all of which belonging to the gang. When he finally reached the bottom, a blaster bolt nearly took his head off, and he jerked back behind the slanted wall that separated the alternating stairs and the first floor.

"I suppose I should have used something stronger than rope to tie you up, Jedi," said a voice from the floor. It was spoken by a Rodian, if the tone of voice was anything to go by. Jace was sure it was the same Rodian who captured him.

"That would be your problem, I'm afraid," Jace said back.

"At least I had the sense to take away your lightsaber."

"And that would be my problem."

He heard the Rodian chuckling, but did not risk sticking his head out to look. There was no way he could win if he stood there, speaking with the Rodian. However, he would most likely be running into a trap, as the Rodian had all that time to prepare, and he had all the supplies that Jace did not. Support drones, armor, weaponry, anything and everything a professional soldier would have, he most likely had it.

But Jace had the Force, and that would make up for it, Jace was sure.

The Jedi crept back up the stairs quickly, picked up one of the crushed drones, and brought it back down with him. He returned to his wall, cradling the machine under one arm. "Hey, bug-face!" he called out.

"That's very offensive Jedi. I thought you had-"

Catch!" he yelled, tossing the drone out into the open. A stream of blaster fire resounded out, and he leapt out into the room.

The room, like the others, was bare with only stone gray walls to greet his eye. The corpses of several of the gang members littered the floor, and three drones accompanied the Rodian. The drone he had thrown was being shot to pieces by the still functional ones, while the Rodian stood back and let them do his dirty work.

Jace quickly got to work, and unleashed a massive push towards them. The drones collided against each other, damaging but not destroying them. It was not until they smashed into the wall behind them was it that they ceased to work.

The Rodian held his ground, and proceeded to charge right at Jace once the Force Push was done. The Jedi could see his lightsaber dangling from the Rodian's belt. Jace met his charge.

Jace threw a punch at his face, reinforcing his arm with the Force, hoping that it would keep him from breaking his hand. He did not need to worry, as the Rodian arched his back around the punch, and wrapped his arm around Jace's, pulling him in. "Tyr doing something, Jedi."

He did, trying to turn his body to grab his lightsaber, to throw another punch, to even get out of the trap he was in. All of Jace's attempts failed, as the Rodian would only pull on his arm, or turn his own body around, keeping Jace in the uncomfortable and restraining position. All because of one trapped arm.

Then, the Rodian turned his body to face Jace's, the palm of his hand coming up to strike Jace against the chin. Jace's head flew back, and he stumbled backwards, pushed by the combination of the Rodian's palm strike, and the step he took in supporting the force behind it.

"You know, Jedi. I just noticed: you're a bit young to be on your own, or to be a full Jedi. You obviously had training, or else you wouldn't be able to do what you did there to my droids. So, where's your master?"

Jace grunted, but he could not do anything else beyond that. "My master is of no concern to yours, Mandalorian."

"Oh, come on, you have nothing better to do, and taunting you is more fun than simply beating you senseless. So tell me, did you master abandon you?"

His fists clenched.

"Maybe you two just got separated, and he's looking for you right now. While off playing in the streets of this back-water world, he's searching the galaxy, trying to find you."

Jace tried throwing another punch, but was reigned back in by the Rodian. He could feel how tight his arm was. If he tried that again, he would risk breaking it.

"Or maybe even, he's dead; killed by the Empire. Wouldn't be surprised, since most of them went out that way." The Rodian chuckled.

Jace did not know what happened next only that it happened. One moment he was still trapped around the Rodian's arm, then the next, he was free, the Rodian on the other side of the room, his chest plate charred in black and smoking.

He looked down at his hand. His fingertips were also covered in black and he could feel it burning, but did not register that it was hurting him only moments later.

He quickly retrieved his lightsaber off of the Rodian's body, and left the building into the outside world. It was still dark, but the sun was coming up.

And the fighting persisted.

* * *

A man casually walked through the battle, glimpsing at the carnage that was being brought on because of the war between the criminal underworld, the Author Fighters, and the Mandalorian mercenaries. He on more than one occasion had to step over corpses to get to where he needed to.

He was clad in his black robe, hood up. For this instance, he chose to let auburn eyes shine through the shadows hidden by his cloak.

A lone Mandalorian soldier, firing upon a group of the smugglers across the street, remained in his path. His helmet was off, lying next to him. It was heavily cracked, especially over the visor. He probably abandoned it as it was doing more to hamper him than help him.

After all, what good is it to have protection if you can't see two feet in front of you?

He was standing up, using one of the buildings as cover, his blaster rifle continually firing. The man in black merely strode up next to him, and tapped him on the shoulder. Said shoulder came flying back, nearly smashing the man's face in. He took a quick step backwards though, and was saved from a broken nose and countless other damages.

The Mandalorian took a look at him, and raised his rifle. "Who the hell are you?"

The man in black merely shook his head and rose both hands, palms out. "Please, be calm. I want to help you."

"Answer the damned question."

"Young people these days. So impatient." The man in black removed his hood for a moment. When the Mandalorian saw what was underneath, free from the constraints of the cloak, his eyes went black. Nothing was left in them, and his body went perfectly still, before falling against the concrete. His head struck the concrete particularly hard, and the skull was cracked open.

The man in black, while putting his hood back up, walked away before the blood spread to his robe.

The rest of the trip to his destination was rather uneventful, save for the random corpse or explosion. This was easier than he thought.

The small shack itself was rather modest, and while it had been touched from the battle- the blaster scarring and the bullet holes saw to that- it was still quiet there. The game and its players had moved to other parts of the dock, leaving the shack, the biggest prize of the entire area, ripe for the taking.

He entered the shack, and found it empty. It was rather plain, with only a table and four chairs inside, along with a radio and a small refrigerator in the corner. A laptop also was present, sitting on top of the table.

The man in black walked over to the table and sat down. He opened up the computer, and turned it on. After spending some time hacking into it, he came to an operational screen.

The title read:** Vanguard MK I**

The man in black smiled to himself, and opened toe screen. A small list came to him:

**Number of Units: 5**

**Operational: 5**

**Active: 0**

**Standby: 5**

There was a small button on the bottom left corner titled **Activate**. He clicked it, and a menu popped up asking how many he wanted to activate. He clicked another button labeled **All**.

Then, he leaned back as the menu screen closed itself, being replaced by five different screens, each with a small print on the bottom right corner identifying which of the five units the screen represented. The five were at first black, but they eventually came to life, the cameras from the mechs being filled with static until they cleared up.

"Damn," he muttered. "I forgot the popcorn."

* * *

**So yeah, this is going to be three-parter, other than the original two-parter that I was originally going for. On the bright side, it gives a logical explanation for the Mandalorians and the AF to start working together! **

**Okay, never mind, click the review button and get your pitchforks sharpened and torches lit.**


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